"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!"