I throw a wad of flimsy French bills on the table.
“A thousand francs! Now that’s got to last us till some Editor realises that certain gems of literature signed ‘Silenus Starset’ are worth real money.”
“Oh, they are loovely, darleen, your writings. No one will refuse articles so beautiful.”
“My dear, you can’t conceive the intensity of editorial obfustication. I fear we’ve got to retrench. You must make the ‘economies.’”
“Yes, yes, that is easy for me. I know nussing but make the economies. You see it is the chance often if I have anysing to make the economies on.”
“Good! Well, the first thing is to get out of this hotel. We can’t afford palatial luxury at five francs a day.”
And here I look with some distaste at the best bedroom the Hôtel du Monde et du Mozambique affords. I see a fat, high bed of varnished pine, on which reposes a bloated crimson quilt. On the mantelpiece a glass bell enshrines a clock of gilt and chocolate-coloured marble. There is a paunchy, inhospitable chair of green plush, and two of apologetic cane. An oval table is covered by a fringed cloth of crimson velour, and there is a mirror in two sections, which, by an ingenious system of distortion immediately makes one hate oneself—one either looks mentally abnormal, or about as intelligent as a caveman.
“In truth,” I observe, “the decorative scheme of our apartment puzzles me. Whether it is Empire or Louis Quinze I cannot decide. Really, we must seek something less complex.”
She looks at the money thoughtfully. “We might take a logement. Already have I think of it. To-day I have ask Madame who keep the hotel, and she tell me zere is one very near—rue Mazarin. The rent is five hundred by year. Perhaps it is too much,” she adds timidly.
“No, I think we might allow that. We pay three months in advance, I suppose. Allow other three hundred francs for furnishing—do you think we could manage on that?”