che, platonist
and literary man generally, became a member of the Bohemian Club, in the
twenty-fourth year of his age.

At that time, Gustave Colline, the great philosopher, Marcel, the great
painter, Schaunard, the great musician, and Rodolphe, the great poet (as
they called one another), regularly frequented the Momus Cafe, where
they were surnamed "the Four Musqueteers," because they were always seen
together. In fact, they came together, went away together, played
together, and sometimes didn't pay their shot together, with a unison
worthy of the best orchestra.

They chose to meet in a room where forty people might have been
accommodated, but they were usually there alone, inasmuch as they had
rendered the place uninhabitable by its ordinary frequenters. The chance
customer who risked himself in this den, became, from the moment of his
entrance, the victim of the terrible four; and, in most cases, made his
escape without finishing his newspaper and cup of coffee, seasoned as
they were by unheard-of maxims on art, sentiment, and political economy.
The conversation of the four comrades was of such a nature that the
waiter who served them had become an idiot in the prime of his life.

At length things reached such a point that the landlord lost all
patience and came up one night to make a formal statement of his griefs:

"Firstly. Monsieur Rodolphe comes early in the morning to breakfast, and
carries off to his room all the papers of the establishment, going so
far as to complain if he finds that they have been opened. Consequently,
the other customers, cut off from the usual channels of public opinion
and intelligence, remain until dinner in utter ignorance of political
affairs. The Bosquet party hardly knows the names of the last cabinet."

"Monsieur Rodolphe has even obliged the cafe to subscribe to 'The
Beaver,' of which he is chief editor. The master of the establishment at
first refused; but as Monsieur Rodolphe and his party kept calling the
waiter every half hour, and crying, 'The Beaver! bring us 'The Beaver'
some other customers, whose curiosity was excited by these obstinate
demands, also asked for 'The Beaver.' So 'The Beaver' was subscribed
to--a hatter's journal, which appeared every month, ornamented with a
vignette and an article on 'The Philosophy of Hats and other things in
general,' by Gustave Colline."

"Secondly. The aforesaid Monsieur Colline, and his friend Monsieur
Rodolphe, repose themse