ch and such a cafe. At the cafe, in
answer to inquiries of the waitress, made after surmounting
unspeakable repugnance, Lucien heard that Finot had just left the
place. Lucien, at length tired out, began to regard Finot as a
mythical and fabulous character; it appeared simpler to waylay Etienne
Lousteau at Flicoteaux's. That youthful journalist would, doubtless,
explain the mysteries that enveloped the paper for which he wrote.

Since the day, a hundred times blessed, when Lucien made the
acquaintance of Daniel d'Arthez, he had taken another seat at
Flicoteaux's. The two friends dined side by side, talking in lowered
voices of the higher literature, of suggested subjects, and ways of
presenting, opening up, and developing them. At the present time
Daniel d'Arthez was correcting the manuscript of _The Archer of Charles
IX._ He reconstructed whole chapters, and wrote the fine passages found
therein, as well as the magnificent preface, which is, perhaps, the
best thing in the book, and throws so much light on the work of the
young school of literature. One day it so happened that Daniel had
been waiting for Lucien, who now sat with his friend's hand in his
own, when he saw Etienne Lousteau turn the door-handle. Lucien
instantly dropped Daniel's hand, and told the waiter that he would
dine at his old place by the counter. D'Arthez gave Lucien a glance of
divine kindness, in which reproach was wrapped in forgiveness. The
glance cut the poet to the quick; he took Daniel's hand and grasped it
anew.

"It is an important question of business for me; I will tell you about
it afterwards," said he.

Lucien was in his old place by the time that Lousteau reached the
table; as the first comer, he greeted his acquaintance; they soon
struck up a conversation, which grew so lively that Lucien went off in
search of the manuscript of the _Marguerites_, while Lousteau finished
his dinner. He had obtained leave to lay his sonnets before the
journalist, and mistook the civility of the latter for willingness to
find him a publisher, or a place on the paper. When Lucien came
hurrying back again, he saw d'Arthez resting an elbow on the table in
a corner of the restaurant, and knew that his friend was watching him
with melancholy eyes, but he would not see d'Arthez just then; he felt
the sharp pangs of poverty, the goadings of ambition, and followed
Lousteau.

In the late afternoon the journalist and the neophyte went to the
Luxembourg, and