away the nightmare, he bit his finger till he brought
blood, and almost made himself scream with pain. He then perceived that,
though trampling upon money, he was perfectly awake. Like a personage in
a tragedy, he ejaculated:

"Can I believe my eyes?" and then seizing Rodolphe's hand, he added,
"Explain to me this mystery."

"Did I explain it 'twould be one no more."

"Come, now!"

"This gold is the fruit of the sweat of my brow," said Rodolphe, picking
up the money and arranging it on the table. He then went a few steps and
looked respectfully at the five hundred francs ranged in heaps, thinking
to himself, "Now then, my dreams will be realized!"

"There cannot be much less than six thousand francs there," thought
Marcel to himself, as he regarded the silver which trembled on the
table. "I've an idea! I shall ask Rodolphe to buy my 'Passage of the Red
Sea.'"

All at once Rodolphe put himself into a theatrical attitude, and, with
great solemnity of voice and gesture, addressed the artist:

"Listen to me, Marcel: the fortune which has dazzled your eyes is not
the product of vile maneuvers; I have not sold my pen; I am rich, but
honest. This gold, bestowed by a generous hand, I have sworn to use in
laboriously acquiring a serious position--such as a virtuous man should
occupy. Labor is the most scared of duties--."

"And the horse, the noblest of animals," interrupted Marcel.

"Bah! where did you get that sermon? Been through a course of good
sense, no doubt."

"Interrupt me not," replied Rodolphe, "and truce to your railleries.
They will be blunted against the buckler of invulnerable resolution in
which I am from this moment clad."

"That will do for prologue. Now the conclusion."

"This is my design. No longer embarrassed about the material wants of
life, I am going seriously to work. First of all, I renounce my vagabond
existence: I shall dress like other people, set up a black coat, and go
to evening parties. If you are willing to follow in my footsteps, we
will continue to live together but you must adopt my program. The
strictest economy will preside over our life. By proper management we
have before us three months' work without any preoccupation. But we must
be economical."

"My dear fellow," said Marcel, "economy is a science only practicable
for rich people. You and I, therefore, are ignorant of its first
elements. However, by making an outlay of six francs we can have the
works of Monsieur Jea