"I shall borrow clothes of Rodolphe or Colline."
"Infatuated youth! Do you forget that this is the twentieth, and at this time of the month their wardrobe is up to the very top of the spout?"
"Between now and five o'clock this evening I shall find a dress-coat."
"I took three weeks to get one when I went to my cousin's wedding and that was in January."
"Well, then, I shall go as I am," said Marcel, with a theatrical stride. "It shall certainly never be said that a miserable question of etiquette hindered me from making my first step in society."
"Without boots," suggested his friend.
Marcel rushed out in a state of agitation impossible to describe. At the end of two hours he returned, loaded with a false collar.
"Hardly worth while to run so far for that," said Schaunard. "There was paper enough to make a dozen."
"But," cried Marcel, tearing his hair, "we must have some things—confound it!" And he commenced a thorough investigation of every corner of the two rooms. After an hour's search, he realized a costume thus composed:
A pair of plaid trousers, a gray hat, a red cravat, a blue waistcoat, two boots, one black glove, and one glove that had been white.