r?" suggested Rodolphe.

"Then I am to be left," said the unhappy domestic, "without a covering
for my head!"

"Take your livery," said Marcel, moved in spite of himself, and he
restored the cap to Baptiste.

"Yet it is that wretch who has wrecked our fortunes," said Rodolphe,
seeing poor Baptiste go out. "Where shall we dine today?"

"We shall know tomorrow," replied Marcel.

CHAPTER VIII

THE COST OF A FIVE FRANC PIECE

One Saturday evening, at a time when he had not yet gone into
housekeeping with Mademoiselle Mimi, who will shortly make her
appearance, Rodolphe made the acquaintance at the table d'hote he
frequented of a ladies' wardrobe keeper, named Mademoiselle Laure.
Having learned that he was editor of "The Scarf of Iris" and of "The
Beaver," two fashion papers, the milliner, in hope of getting her goods
puffed, commenced a series of significant provocations. To these
provocations Rodolphe replied by a pyrotechnical display of madrigals,
sufficient to make Benserade, Voiture, and all other dealers in the
fireworks of gallantry jealous; and at the end of the dinner,
Mademoiselle Laure, having learned that he was a poet, gave him clearly
to understand that she was not indisposed to accept him as her Petrarch.
She even, without circumlocution, made an appointment with him for the
next day.

"By Jove," said Rodolphe to himself, as he saw Mademoiselle Laure home,
"this is certainly a very amiable young person. She seems to me to have
a good grammar and a tolerably extensive wardrobe. I am quite disposed
to make her happy."

On reaching the door of her house, Mademoiselle Laure relinquished
Rodolphe's arm, thanking him for the trouble he had taken in
accompanying her to such a remote locality.

"Oh! madame," replied Rodolphe, bowing to the ground, "I should like you
to have lived at Moscow or the islands of the Sound, in order to have
had the pleasure of being your escort the longer."

"That would be rather far," said Laure, affectedly.

"We could have gone by way of the Boulevards, madame," said Rodolphe.
"Allow me to kiss you hand in the shape of your cheek," he added,
kissing his companion on the lips before Laure could make any
resistance.

"Oh sir!" she exclaimed, "you go too fast."

"It is to reach my destination sooner," said Rodolphe. "In love, the
first stages should be ridden at a gallop."

"What a funny fellow," though the milliner, as she entered her dwelling.

"A pretty girl