Lucien fancied that he must be dreaming when he heard a _claqueur_
appraising a writer's value.

"Coralie has improved," continued Braulard, with the air of a
competent critic. "If she is a good girl, I will take her part, for
they have got up a cabal against her at the Gymnase. This is how I
mean to do it. I will have a few well-dressed men in the balconies to
smile and make a little murmur, and the applause will follow. That is
a dodge which makes a position for an actress. I have a liking for
Coralie, and you ought to be satisfied, for she has feeling. Aha! I
can hiss any one on the stage if I like."

"But let us settle this business about the tickets," put in Lousteau.

"Very well, I will come to this gentleman's lodging for them at the
beginning of the month. He is a friend of yours, and I will treat him
as I do you. You have five theatres; you will get thirty tickets--that
will be something like seventy-five francs a month. Perhaps you will
be wanting an advance?" added Braulard, lifting a cash-box full of
coin out of his desk.

"No, no," said Lousteau; "we will keep that shift against a rainy
day."

"I will work with Coralie, sir, and we will come to an understanding,"
said Braulard, addressing Lucien, who was looking about him, not
without profound astonishment. There was a bookcase in Braulard's
study, there were framed engravings and good furniture; and as they
passed through the drawing room, he noticed that the fittings were
neither too luxurious nor yet mean. The dining-room seemed to be the
best ordered room, he remarked on this jokingly.

"But Braulard is an epicure," said Lousteau; "his dinners are famous
in dramatic literature, and they are what you might expect from his
cash-box."

"I have good wine," Braulard replied modestly.--"Ah! here are my
lamplighters," he added, as a sound of hoarse voices and strange
footsteps came up from the staircase.

Lucien on his way down saw a march past of _claqueurs_ and retailers of
tickets. It was an ill smelling squad, attired in caps, seedy
trousers, and threadbare overcoats; a flock of gallows-birds with
bluish and greenish tints in their faces, neglected beards, and a
strange mixture of savagery and subservience in their eyes. A horrible
population lives and swarms upon the Paris boulevards; selling watch
guards and brass jewelry in the streets by day, applauding under the
chandeliers of the theatre at night, and ready to lend themselves to
any dirt