"To Versailles. But it is an epidemic!" exclaimed Rodolphe. "But why do you want money?" "That is my story," replied Rodolphe, "I have at five this evening an appointment with a lady, a very well bred lady who never goes out save in an omnibus. I wish to unite my fortunes with hers for a few days, and it appears to me the right thing to enable her to take the pleasures of this life. For dinner, dances, &c., &c., I must have five francs, and if I do not find them French literature is dishonoured in my person." "Why don't you borrow the sum of the lady herself?" exclaimed the critic. "The first time of meeting, it is hardly possible. Only you can get me out of this fix." "By all the mummies of Egypt I give you my word of honor that I have not enough to buy a sou pipe. However, I have some books that you can sell." "Impossible today, Mother Mansut's, Lebigre's, and all the shops on the quays and in the Rue Saint Jacques are closed. What books are they? Volumes of poetry with a portrait of the author in spectacles? But such things never sell." "Unless the author is criminally convicted," said the critic. "Wait a bit, here are some romances and some concert tickets. By setting about it skillfully you may, perhaps, make money of them." "I would rather have something else, a pair of trowsers, for instance." "Come," said the critic, "take this copy of Bossuet and this plaster cast of Monsieur Odilon Barrot. On my word of honor, it is the widow's mite." "I see that you are doing your best," said Rodolphe. "I will take away these treasures, but if I get thirty sous out of them I shall regard it as the thirteenth labor of Hercules." After having covered about four leagues Rodolphe, by the aid of an eloquence of which he had the secret on great occasions, succeeded in getting his washerwoman to lend him two francs on the volumes of poetry, the romances and the bust of Monsieur Barrot. "Come," said he, as he recrossed the Seine, "here is the sauce, now I must find the dish itself. Suppose I go to my uncle." Half an hour later he was at his Uncle Monetti's, who read upon his nephew's face what was the matter. Hence he put himself on guard and forestalled any request by a series of complaints, such as: "Times are hard, bread is dear, debtors do not pay up, rents are terribly high, commerce decaying, &c., &c.," all the hypocritical litany of shopkeepers. "Would you believe it," said the uncle, "that I have been forced to borrow money from my shopman to meet a bill?" "You should have sent to me," said Rodolphe. "I would have lent it you, I received two hundred francs three days ago." "Thanks, my lad," said the uncle, "but you have need of your fortune. Ah! whilst you are here, you might, you who write such a good hand, copy out some bills for me that I want to send out." "My five francs are going to cost me dear," said Rodolphe to himself, setting about the task, which he condensed.