sette's Rodolphe called on
Marcel to fetch him. The artist was at his toilet.

"What!" said Rodolphe, "you are going into society in a colored shirt?"

"Does that shock custom?" observed Marcel quietly.

"Shock custom, it stuns it."

"The deuce," said Marcel, looking at his shirt, which displayed a
pattern of boars pursued by dogs, on a blue ground. "I have not another
here. Oh! Bah! So much the worse, I will put on a collar, and as
'Methuselah' buttons to the neck no one will see the color of my lines."

"What!" said Rodolphe uneasy, "you are going to wear 'Methuselah'?"

"Alas!" replied Marcel, "I must, God wills it and my tailor too; besides
it has a new set of buttons and I have just touched it up with ivory
black."

"Methuselah" was merely Marcel's dress coat. He called it so because it
was the oldest garment of his wardrobe. "Methuselah" was cut in the
fashion of four years' before and was, besides of a hideous green, but
Marcel declared that it looked black by candlelight.

In five minutes Marcel was dressed, he was attired in the most perfect
bad taste, the get-up of an art student going into society.

M. Casimir Bonjour will never be so surprised the day he learns his
election as a member of the Institute as were Rodolphe and Marcel on
reaching Mademoiselle Musette's.

This is the reason for their astonishment: Mademoiselle Musette who for
some time past had fallen out with her lover the Counsellor of State,
had been abandoned by him at a very critical juncture. Legal proceedings
having been taken by her creditors and her landlord, her furniture had
been seized and carried down into the courtyard in order to be taken
away and sold on the following day. Despite this incident Mademoiselle
Musette had not for a moment the idea of giving her guests the slip and
did not put off her party. She had the courtyard arranged as a drawing
room, spread a carpet on the pavement, prepared everything as usual,
dressed to receive company, and invited all the tenants to her little
entertainment, towards which Heaven contributed its illumination.

This jest had immense success, never had Musette's evenings displayed
such go and gaiety; they were still dancing and singing when the porters
came to take away furniture and carpets and the company was obliged to
withdraw.

Musette bowed her guests out, singing:

"They will laugh long and loud, tralala,
At my Thursday night's crowd
They will laugh long and