icis, "a rich amateur, who is collecting a
gallery destined to make the tour of Europe, has charged me to procure
him a series of remarkable works. I come to offer you admission into
this museum--in a word, to buy your 'Passage of the Red Sea.'"

"Money down?" asked Marcel.

"Specie," replied the Jew, making the orchestra pockets strike up.

"Do you accept this serious offer?" asked Colline.

"Of course I do!" shouted Rodolphe, "don't you see, you wretch, that he
is talking of 'tin'? Is there nothing sacred for you, atheist that you
are?"

Colline mounted on a table and assumed the attitude of Harpocrates, the
God of Silence.

"Push on, Medicis!" said Marcel, exhibiting his picture. "I wish to
leave you the honor of fixing the price of this work, which is above all
price."

The Jew placed on the table a hundred and fifty francs in new coin.

"Well, what more?" said Marcel, "that's only the prologue."

"Monsieur Marcel," replied the Jew, "you know that my first offer is my
last. I shall add nothing. Reflect, a hundred and fifty francs; that is
a sum, it is!"

"A very small sum," said the artist. "There is that much worth of cobalt
in my Pharaoh's robe. Make it a round sum, at any rate! Square it off;
say two hundred!"

"I won't add a sou!" said Medicis. "But I stand dinner for the company,
wine to any extent."

"Going, going, going!" shouted Colline, with three blows of his fist on
the table, "no one speaks?--gone!"

"Well it's a bargain!" said Marcel.

"I will send for the picture tomorrow," said the Jew, "and now,
gentlemen, to dinner!"

The four friends descended the staircase, singing the chorus of "The
Huguenots"--"_A table! A table!_"

Medicis treated the Bohemians in a really magnificent way, and gave them
their choice of a number of dishes, which until then were completely
unknown to them. Henceforward hot lobster ceased to be a myth with
Schaunard, who contracted a passion for it that bordered on delirium.
The four friends departed from the gorgeous banquet as drunk as a
vintage-day. Marcel's intoxication was near having the most deplorable
consequences. In passing by his tailor's, at two in the morning, he
absolutely wanted to wake up his creditor, and pay him the hundred and
fifty francs on account. A ray of reason which flashed across the mind
of Colline, stopped the artist on the border of this precipice.

A week after, Marcel discovered in what gallery his picture had been
placed. Whi