To follow Rodolphe’s various adventures and enterprises back to their originals in Murger’s life, would be an interesting task, but it is one that cannot be attempted here; and for the time being we must keep to the poet in the book. Like his friends Schaunard and Marcel, this young man has pinned his faith to one ambitious work, a drama called the “The Avenger,” which has already gone the round of all the theatres of Paris, and of which in the course of a couple of years, he has accumulated a dozen or so huge manuscript copies, weighing collectively something like fifteen pounds. “The Avenger” was ultimately produced, and ran for five successive nights, after large portions of these carefully wrought versions had been used up in the humble service of lighting the fire. But this does not come till towards the end of the story; and during the days when we know him best, Rodolphe, awaiting his dramatic triumph, is willing enough to turn his literary talents to account in less dignified ways. The main sources of his income appear to be “The Scarf of Iris,” a fashion-journal, and “The Castor,” a paper devoted to the interests of the hat-trade, both of which he edits, and in which he publishes from time to time his opinions on tragedy and kindred subjects. It is to the columns of the latter periodical, by-the-by, that Gustave Colline contributes a discussion on “The Philosophy of Hats, and Other Things in General”—how much to the amusement and instruction of its readers we are unfortunately not told. Probably the financial advantages of these two undertakings are of a rather slight and unsubstantial character; at any rate, the editor-in-chief shows himself at all times ready to supplement his official emoluments whensoever occasion offers. Witness his most famous piece of hack-work, the composition of “The Perfect Chimney Constructor.” Rodolphe, who has been sadly down on his luck for a time—fluctuating between going to bed without supper and supping without going to bed—happens accidentally to run across his Uncle Monetti, a stove-maker and physician of smoky chimneys, whom he has not seen for an age. Now, Monsieur Monetti is an enthusiast in his art, and has conceived the idea of drawing up for the benefit of future generations, a manual of chimney-construction, in which his own numerous patents shall be given adequate presentation. Finding his nephew fallen upon evil days, he intrusts him with this literary enterprise, promising him a remuneration of three hundred francs, and rashly giving him outright fifty francs on account. Of course, Rodolphe incontinently disappears, and only turns up again when the money has disappeared also. Uncle Monetti then resorts to drastic measures. He locks the volatile young gentleman in a small room, six stories up, with stoves and ovens for his company, and takes away his clothes, leaving in their stead a ridiculous Turkish dressing-gown. In this attic solitude the unfortunate young poet is fain to wax eloquent over ventilators, till he is rescued in the most romantic way by a certain Mademoiselle Sidonia, as the reader will find recorded at length in its proper place in the Bohemian chronicles.