rature."

"A Parliamentary figure."

"A very bad figure; literature has no cloak!"

"Having made a report, as chairman of committee," resumed Colline,
rising, "I maintain the conclusions therein embodied. The jealousy which
consumes him disturbs the reason of our friend Marcel; the great artist
is beside himself."

"Order!" cried Marcel.

"So much so, that, able designer as he is, he has just introduced into
his speech a figure the incorrectness of which has been ably pointed out
by the talented orator who preceded me."

"Colline is an ass!" shouted Marcel, with a bang of his fist on the
table that caused a lively sensation among the plates. "Colline knows
nothing in an affair of sentiment; he is incompetent to judge of such
matters; he has an old book in place of a heart."

Prolonged laughter from Schaunard. During the row, Colline kept gravely
adjusting the folds of his white cravat as if to make way for the
torrents of eloquence contained beneath them. When silence was
reestablished, he thus continued:

"Gentlemen, I intend with one word to banish from your minds the
chimerical apprehensions which the suspicions of Marcel may have
engendered in them respecting Carolus."

"Oh, yes!" said Marcel ironically.

"It will be as easy as that," continued Colline, blowing the match with
which he had lighted his pipe.

"Go on! Go on!" cried Schaunard, Rodolphe, and the women together.

"Gentlemen! Although I have been personally and violently attacked in
this meeting, although I have been accused of selling for base liquors
the influence which I possess; secure in a good conscience I shall not
deign to reply to those assaults on my probity, my loyalty, my morality.
[Sensation.] But there is one thing which I will have respected. [Here
the orator, endeavoring to lay his hand on his heart, gave himself a rap
in the stomach.] My well tried and well known prudence has been called
in question. I have been accused of wishing to introduce among you a
person whose intentions were hostile to your happiness--in matters of
sentiment. This supposition is an insult to the virtue of these
ladies--nay more, an insult to their good taste. Carolus Barbemuche is
decidedly ugly." [Visible denial on the face of Phemie; noise under the
table; it is Schaunard kicking her by way of correcting her compromising
frankness.]

"But," proceeded Colline, "what will reduce to powder the contemptible
argument with which my opponent has armed