it is
the least agreeable part of the rabbit. There are many persons who
cannot bear it. I happen to like it very much, however."

"If so," said Schaunard, "I regret exceedingly that you robbed yourself
for me."

"How? Excuse me," quoth he of the books, "I kept the head, as I had the
honor of observing to you."

"Allow me," rejoined Schaunard, thrusting his plate under his nose,
"what part do you call that?"

"Good heavens!" cried the stranger, "what do I see? Another head? It is
a bicephalous rabbit!"

"Buy what?" said Schaunard.

"Cephalous--comes from the Greek. In fact, Baffon (who used to wear
ruffles) cites some cases of this monstrosity. On the whole, I am not
sorry to have eaten a phenomenon."

Thanks to this incident, the conversation was definitely established.
Schaunard, not willing to be behindhand in courtesy, called for an extra
quart of wine. The hero of the books called for a third. Schaunard
treated to salad, the other to dessert. At eight o'clock there were six
empty bottles on the table. As they talked, their natural frankness,
assisted by their libations, had urged them to interchange biographies,
and they knew each other as well as if they had always lived together.
He of the books, after hearing the confidential disclosures of
Schaunard, had informed him that his name was Gustave Colline; he was a
philosopher by profession, and got his living by giving lessons in
rhetoric, mathematics and several other _ics_.

What little money he picked up by his profession was spent in buying
books. His hazel-coloured coat was known to all the stall keepers on the
quay from the Pont de la Concorde to the Pont Saint Michel. What he did
with these books, so numerous that no man's lifetime would have been
long enough to read them, nobody knew, least of all, himself. But this
hobby of his amounted to monomania: when he came home at night without
bringing a musty quarto with him, he would repeat the saying of Titus,
"I have lost a day." His enticing manners, his language, which was a
mosaic of every possible style, and the fearful puns which embellished
his conversation, completely won Schaunard, who demanded on the spot
permission of Colline to add his name to those on the famous list
already mentioned.

They left Mother Cadet's at nine o'clock at night, both fairly primed,
and with the gait of men who have been engaged in close conversation
with sundry bottles.

Colline offered to stand coffee, and Sch