ear it without taking offence, but not without despair," replied
Lucien.

"Well, my dear fellow, the first sonnet, from its involved style, was
evidently written at Angouleme; it gave you so much trouble, no doubt,
that you cannot give it up. The second and third smack of Paris already;
but read us one more sonnet," he added, with a gesture that seemed
charming to the provincial.

Encouraged by the request, Lucien read with more confidence, choosing a
sonnet which d'Arthez and Bridau liked best, perhaps on account of its
color.

THE TULIP.

I am the Tulip from Batavia's shore;
The thrifty Fleming for my beauty rare
Pays a king's ransom, when that I am fair,
And tall, and straight, and pure my petal's core.

And, like some Yolande of the days of yore,
My long and amply folded skirts I wear,
O'er-painted with the blazon that I bear
--Gules, a fess azure; purpure, fretty, or.

The fingers of the Gardener divine
Have woven for me my vesture fair and fine,
Of threads of sunlight and of purple stain;
No flower so glorious in the garden bed,
But Nature, woe is me, no fragrance shed
Within my cup of Orient porcelain.

"Well?" asked Lucien after a pause, immeasurably long, as it seemed to
him.

"My dear fellow," Etienne said, gravely surveying the tips of Lucien's
boots (he had brought the pair from Angouleme, and was wearing them
out). "My dear fellow, I strongly recommend you to put your ink on your
boots to save blacking, and to take your pens for toothpicks, so
that when you come away from Flicoteaux's you can swagger along this
picturesque alley looking as if you had dined. Get a situation of any
sort or description. Run errands for a bailiff if you have the heart, be
a shopman if your back is strong enough, enlist if you happen to have a
taste for military music. You have the stuff of three poets in you;
but before you can reach your public, you will have time to die of
starvation six times over, if you intend to live on the proceeds of your
poetry, that is. And from your too unsophisticated discourse, it would
seem to be your intention to coin money out of your inkstand.

"I say nothing as to your verses; they are a good deal better than
all the poetical wares that are cumbering the ground in booksellers'
backshops just now. Elegant 'nightingales' of that sort cost a little
more than the others, because they are printed on hand-made paper, but
they nearly all