"Oh, oh, oh!" shouted the others, looking at the floor to see if it would not open and swallow up the philosopher. Meanwhile the Jew let himself fall into the arm chair, and was just going to cry out at its hardness, when he remembered that it was one which he himself had sold to Colline for a deputy's speech. As the Jew sat down, his pockets re-echoed with a silvery sound; melodious symphony, which threw the four friends into a reverie of delight. "The accompaniment seems pretty," said Rodolphe aside to Marcel. "Now for the air!" "Monsieur Marcel," said Medicis, "I have merely come to make your fortune; that is to say, I offer you a superb opportunity of making your entry into the artistic world. Art, you know, is a barren route, of which glory is the oasis." "Father Medicis," cried Marcel, on the tenter-hooks of impatience, "in the name of your revered patron, St. Fifty-percent, be brief!" "Here it is," continued Medicis, "a rich amateur, who is collecting a gallery destined to make the tour of Europe, has charged me to procure him a series of remarkable works. I come to offer you admission into this museum--in a word, to buy your 'Passage of the Red Sea.'" "Money down?" asked Marcel. "Specie," replied the Jew, making the orchestra pockets strike up. "Do you accept this serious offer?" asked Colline. "Of course I do!" shouted Rodolphe, "don't you see, you wretch, that he is talking of 'tin'? Is there nothing sacred for you, atheist that you are?" Colline mounted on a table and assumed the attitude of Harpocrates, the God of Silence. "Push on, Medicis!" said Marcel, exhibiting his picture. "I wish to leave you the honor of fixing the price of this work, which is above all price." The Jew placed on the table a hundred and fifty francs in new coin. "Well, what more?" said Marcel, "that's only the prologue." "Monsieur Marcel," replied the Jew, "you know that my first offer is my last. I shall add nothing. Reflect, a hundred and fifty francs; that is a sum, it is!" "A very small sum," said the artist. "There is that much worth of cobalt in my Pharaoh's robe. Make it a round sum, at any rate! Square it off; say two hundred!" "I won't add a sou!" said Medicis. "But I stand dinner for the company, wine to any extent." "Going, going, going!" shouted Colline, with three blows of his fist on the table, "no one speaks?--gone!" "Well it's a bargain!" said Marcel. "I will send for the picture tomorrow," said the Jew, "and now, gentlemen, to dinner!" The four friends descended the staircase, singing the chorus of "The Huguenots"--"_A table! A table!_"