to dine today. There now!"

"There are other difficulties," continued Schaunard, who could not help
being a little jealous of the good fortune that had fallen to his
friend's lot. "You can't dine out in a red flannel shirt and slippers."

"I shall borrow clothes of Rodolphe or Colline."

"Infatuated youth! Do you forget that this is the twentieth, and at this
time of the month their wardrobe is up to the very top of the spout?"

"Between now and five o'clock this evening I shall find a dress-coat."

"I took three weeks to get one when I went to my cousin's wedding and
that was in January."

"Well, then, I shall go as I am," said Marcel, with a theatrical stride.
"It shall certainly never be said that a miserable question of etiquette
hindered me from making my first step in society."

"Without boots," suggested his friend.

Marcel rushed out in a state of agitation impossible to describe. At the
end of two hours he returned, loaded with a false collar.

"Hardly worth while to run so far for that," said Schaunard. "There was
paper enough to make a dozen."

"But," cried Marcel, tearing his hair, "we must have some
things--confound it!" And he commenced a thorough investigation of every