nt."

"Dear Richard! What an admirable memory he has for dates! Did he leave
any message, Madame Duphot?"

The old woman looked at me, and hesitated.

"He says, M'sieur Mueller--he says ..."

"Nay, this gentleman is a friend--you may speak out. What does our
beloved and respected _proprietaire_ say, Madame Duphot?"

"He says, if you don't both of you pay up the arrears by midday on
Sunday next, he'll seize your goods, and turn you into the street."

"Ah, I always said he was the nicest man I knew!" observed Mueller,
gravely. "Anything else, Madame Duphot?"

"Only this, Monsieur Mueller--that if you didn't go quietly, he'd take
your windows out of the frames and your doors off the hinges."

"_Comment_! He bade you give me that message, the miserable old son of a
spider! _Quatre-vingt mille plats de diables aux truffes_! Take my
windows out of the frames, indeed! Let him try, Madame Duphot--that's
all--let him try!"

And with this, Mueller, in a towering rage, led the way upstairs,
muttering volleys of the most extraordinary and eccentric oaths of his
own invention, and leaving the little old _portiere_ grinning
maliciously in the hall.

"But can't you pay him?" said I.

"Whether I can, or can't, it seems I must," he replied, kicking open the
door of his studio as viciously as if it were the corporeal frame of
Monsieur Richard. "The only question is--how? At the present moment, I
haven't five francs in the till."

"Nor have I more than twenty. How much is it?"

"A hundred and sixty--worse luck!"

"Haven't the Tapottes paid for any of their ancestors yet?"

"Confound it!--yes; they've paid for a Marshal of France and a Farmer
General, which are all I've yet finished and sent home. But there was
the washerwoman, and the _traiteur_, and the artist's colorman, and,
_enfin_, the devil to pay--and the money's gone, somehow!"

"I've only just cleared myself from a lot of debts," I said, ruefully,
"and I daren't ask either my father or Dr. Cheron for an advance just at
present. What is to be done?"

"Oh, I don't know. I must raise the money somehow. I must sell
something--there's my copy of Titian's 'Pietro Aretino.' It's worth
eighty francs, if only for a sign. And there's a Madonna and Child after
Andrea del Sarto, worth a fortune to any enterprising sage-femme with
artistic proclivities. I'll try what Nebuchadnezzar will do for me."

"And who, in the name of all that's Israelitish, is Nebuchadnezzar?"