"Well," asked Marcel, "did you succeed?"
"No, my uncle has gone to Versailles. And you?"
"That beast of a Medicis does not want any more ruined manor houses. He wants me to do him a Bombardment of Tangiers."
"Our reputations are ruined forever if we do not give this party," murmured Rodolphe. "What will my friend, the influential critic, think if I make him put on a white tie and yellow kids for nothing."
And both went back to the studio, a prey to great uneasiness.
At that moment the clock of a neighbor struck four.
"We have only three hours before us," said Rodolphe despondingly.
"But," said Marcel, going up to his friend, "are you quite sure, certain sure, that we have no money left anywhere hereabout? Eh?"
"Neither here, nor elsewhere. Where do you suppose it could come from?"
"If we looked under the furniture, in the stuffing of the arm chairs? They say that the emigrant noblemen used to hide their treasures in the days of Robespierre. Who can tell? Perhaps our arm chair belonged to an emigrant nobleman, and besides, it is so hard that the idea has often occurred to me that it must be stuffed with metal. Will you dissect it?"