ng."

"What! Monsieur Schaunard?" ejaculated the porter.

"Yes," cried the landlord with increasing fury, "and if he has carried
away the smallest article, I send you off, straight off!"

"But it can't be," murmured the poor porter, "Monsieur Schaunard has not
run away. He has gone to get change to pay you, and order a cart for his
furniture."

"A cart for his furniture!" exclaimed the other, "run! I'm sure he has
it here. He laid a trap to get you away from your lodge, fool that you
are!"

"Fool that I am! Heaven help me!" cried the porter, all in a tremble
before the thundering wrath of his superior, who hurried him down the
stairs. When they arrived in the court the porter was hailed by the
young man in the white hat.

"Come now! Am I not soon going to be in possession of my lodging? Is
this the eighth of April? Did I hire a room here and pay you a deposit
to bind the bargain? Yes or no?"

"Excuse me, sir," interposed the landlord, "I am at your service.
Durand, I will talk to the gentleman myself. Run up there, that scamp
Schaunard has come back to pack up. If you find him, shut him in, and
then come down again and run for the police."

Old Durand vanished up the staircase.

"Excuse me, sir," continued the landlord, with a bow to the young man
now left alone with him, "to whom have I the honour of speaking?"

"Your new tenant. I have hired a room in the sixth story of this house,
and am beginning to be tired of waiting for my lodging to become
vacant."

"I am very sorry indeed," replied Monsieur Bernard, "there has been a
little difficulty with one of my tenants, the one whom you are to
replace."

"Sir," cried old Durand from a window at the very top of the house,
"Monsieur Schaunard is not here, but his room--stupid!--I mean he has
carried nothing away, not a hair, sir!"

"Very well, come down," replied the landlord. "Have a little patience, I
beg of you," he continued to the young man. "My porter will bring down
to the cellar the furniture in the room of my defaulting tenant, and you
may take possession in half an hour. Beside, your furniture has not come
yet."

"But it has," answered the young man quietly.

Monsieur Bernard looked around, and saw only the large screens which had
already mystified his porter.

"How is this?" he muttered. "I don't see anything."

"Behold!" replied the youth, unfolding the leaves of the frame, and
displaying to the view of the astonished landlord a magnificent