he first story. The first room
was divided down the middle by a partition, the lower half of solid
wood, the upper lattice work to the ceiling. In this apartment Lucien
discovered a one-armed pensioner supporting several reams of paper on
his head with his remaining hand, while between his teeth he held the
passbook which the Inland Revenue Department requires every newspaper
to produce with each issue. This ill-favored individual, owner of a
yellow countenance covered with red excrescences, to which he owed his
nickname of "Coloquinte," indicated a personage behind the lattice as
the Cerberus of the paper. This was an elderly officer with a medal on
his chest and a silk skull-cap on his head; his nose was almost hidden
by a pair of grizzled moustaches, and his person was hidden as
completely in an ample blue overcoat as the body of the turtle in its
carapace.

"From what date do you wish your subscription to commence, sir?"
inquired the Emperor's officer.

"I did not come about a subscription," returned Lucien. Looking about
him, he saw a placard fastened on a door, corresponding to the one by
which he had entered, and read the words--EDITOR'S OFFICE, and below,
in smaller letters, _No admittance except on business_.

"A complaint, I expect?" replied the veteran. "Ah! yes; we have been
hard on Mariette. What would you have? I don't know the why and
wherefore of it yet.--But if you want satisfaction, I am ready for
you," he added, glancing at a collection of small arms and foils
stacked in a corner, the armory of the modern warrior.

"That was still further from my intention, sir. I have come to speak
to the editor."

"Nobody is ever here before four o'clock."

"Look you here, Giroudeau, old chap," remarked a voice, "I make it
eleven columns; eleven columns at five francs apiece is fifty-five
francs, and I have only been paid forty; so you owe me another fifteen
francs, as I have been telling you."

These words proceeded from a little weasel-face, pallid and
semi-transparent as the half-boiled white of an egg; two slits of eyes
looked out of it, mild blue in tint, but appallingly malignant in
expression; and the owner, an insignificant young man, was completely
hidden by the veteran's opaque person. It was a blood-curdling voice,
a sound between the mewing of a cat and the wheezy chokings of a
hyena.

"Yes, yes, my little militiaman," retorted he of the medal, "but you
are counting the headings and white line