"I should plead insanity," said Tricotrin; "twenty-seven chapters of
that novel, translated into a Spaniard's French, would suffice to
people an asylum. Nevertheless, if it arrived on your hat, I owe you an
apology."

"You also owe me two hundred francs!" shouted the other, "and I have
shown you more patience than you deserve. Well, my folly is finished!
You settle up, or you get out, right off!"

"Have you reflected that it is Christmas Eve--do we live in a
melodrama, that I should wander homeless on Christmas Eve? Seriously,
you cannot expect a man of taste to lend himself to so hackneyed a
situation? Besides, I share this apartment with the composer monsieur
Nicolas Pitou. Consider how poignant he would find the room's
associations if he returned to dwell here alone!"

"Monsieur Pitou will not be admitted when he returns--there is not a
pin to choose between the pair of you. You hand me the two hundred
francs, or you go this minute--and I shall detain your wardrobe till
you pay. Where is it?"

"It is divided between my person and a shelf at the pawnbroker's,"
explained the poet; "but I have a soiled collar in the left-hand corner
drawer. However, I can offer you more valuable security for this
trifling debt than you would dare to ask; the bureau is full of pearls
--metrical, but beyond price. I beg your tenderest care of them,
especially my tragedy in seven acts. Do not play jinks with the
contents of that bureau, or Posterity will gibbet you and the name of
'Gouge' will one day be execrated throughout France. Garbage,