these principles, Robert appears soon after; he has not
created a bank, but a journal. He sits in a chair of state, and
discourses to a shareholder. Bertrand, calm and stupid as before, stands
humbly behind. "Sir," says the editor of La Blague, journal quotidienne,
"our profits arise from a new combination. The journal costs twenty
francs; we sell it for twenty-three and a half. A million subscribers
make three millions and a half of profits; there are my figures;
contradict me by figures, or I will bring an action for libel." The
reader may fancy the scene takes place in England, where many such a
swindling prospectus has obtained credit ere now. At Plate 33, Robert is
still a journalist; he brings to the editor of a paper an article of his
composition, a violent attack on a law. "My dear M. Macaire," says the
editor, "this must be changed; we must PRAISE this law." "Bon, bon!"
says our versatile Macaire. "Je vais retoucher ca, et je vous fais en
faveur de la loi UN ARTICLE MOUSSEUX."

Can such things be? Is it possible that French journalists can so
forget themselves? The rogues! they should come to England and learn
consistency. The honesty of the Press in England is like the air we
breathe, without it we die. No, no! in France, the satire may do very
well; but for England it is too monstrous. Call the press stupid, call
it vulgar, call it violent,--but honest it is. Who ever heard of a
journal changing its politics? O tempora! O mores! as Robert Macaire
says, this would be carrying the joke too far.

When he has done with newspapers, Robert Macaire begins to distinguish
himself on 'Change,* as a creator of companies, a vender of shares, or
a dabbler in foreign stock. "Buy my coal-mine shares," shouts Robert;
"gold mines, silver mines, diamond mines, 'sont de la pot-bouille de la
ratatouille en comparaison de ma houille.'" "Look," says he, on another
occasion, to a very timid, open-countenanced client, "you have a
property to sell! I have found the very man, a rich capitalist, a fellow
whose bills are better than bank-notes." His client sells; the bills are
taken in payment, and signed by that respectable capitalist, Monsieur de
Saint Bertrand. At Plate 81, we find him inditing a circular letter
to all the world, running thus: "Sir,--I regret to say that your
application for shares in the Consolidated European Incombustible
Blacking Association cannot be complied with, as all the shares of the
C. E. I. B. A. were d