t wish any more than you do to buy a pig in a poke.
If to-morrow you authorize me, I won't say to buy, but to let these
people know that you may possibly make the purchase, I'll confer with
one of them on your behalf, and you may be certain that I'll stand up
for your interests as if they were my own."

"Very good, my dear fellow," said Thuillier, "go ahead!"

"And as soon as the paper is purchased we are to fix the day for signing
the contract?"

"Yes," replied Thuillier; "but will you bind yourself to use your utmost
influence on the election?"

"As if it were my own," replied la Peyrade, "which, by the bye, is not
altogether an hypothesis. I have already received suggestions about my
own candidacy, and if I were vindictive--"

"Certainly," said Thuillier, with humility, "you would make a better
deputy than I; but you are not of the required age, I think."

"There's a better reason than that," said la Peyrade; "you are my
friend; I find you again what you once were, and I shall keep the
pledges I have given you. As for the election, I prefer that people say
of me, 'He makes deputies, but will be none himself.' Now I must leave
you and keep my appointment. To-morrow in my own rooms, come and see me;
I shall have something to announce."

Whoso has ever been a newspaper man will ever be one; that horoscope
is as sure and certain as that of drunkards. Whoever has tasted that
feverishly busy and relatively lazy and independent life; whoever has
exercised that sovereignty which criticises intellect, art, talent,
fame, virtue, absurdity, and even truth; whoever has occupied that
tribune erected by his own hands, fulfilled the functions of that
magistracy to which he is self-appointed,--in short, whosoever has
been, for however brief a span, that proxy of public opinion, looks
upon himself when remanded to private life as an exile, and the moment
a chance is offered to him puts out an eager hand to snatch back his
crown.

For this reason when Etienne Lousteau went to la Peyrade, a former
journalist, with an offer of the weapon entitled the "Echo de la
Bievre," all the latter's instincts as a newspaper man were aroused, in
spite of the very inferior quality of the blade. The paper had failed;
la Peyrade believed he could revive it. The subscribers, on the vendor's
own showing, were few and far between, but he would exercise upon them a
"compelle intrare" both powerful and irresistible. In the circumstances
under whic