he
gratitude of literature; I have doubled the prices of manuscripts. I am
giving you this explanation because you are a friend of Lousteau's
my boy," added Dauriat, clapping Lucien on the shoulder with odious
familiarity. "If I were to talk to all the authors who have a mind that
I should be their publisher, I should have to shut up shop; I should
pass my time very agreeably no doubt, but the conversations would cost
too much. I am not rich enough yet to listen to all the monologues of
self-conceit. Nobody does, except in classical tragedies on the stage."

The terrible Dauriat's gorgeous raiment seemed in the provincial poet's
eyes to add force to the man's remorseless logic.

"What is it about?" he continued, addressing Lucien's protector.

"It is a volume of magnificent poetry."

At that word, Dauriat turned to Gabusson with a gesture worthy of Talma.

"Gabusson, my friend," he said, "from this day forward, when anybody
begins to talk of works in manuscript here--Do you hear that, all of
you?" he broke in upon himself; and three assistants at once emerged
from among the piles of books at the sound of their employer's wrathful
voice. "If anybody comes here with manuscripts," he continued, looking
at the finger-nails of a well-kept hand, "ask him whether it is poetry
or prose; and if he says poetry, show him the door at once. Verses mean
reverses in the booktrade."

"Bravo! well put, Dauriat," cried the chorus of journalists.

"It is true!" cried the bookseller, striding about his shop with
Lucien's manuscript in his hand. "You have no idea, gentlemen, of the
amount of harm that Byron, Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Casimir Delavigne,
Canalis, and Beranger have done by their success. The fame of them has
brought down an invasion of barbarians upon us. I know _this_: there
are a thousand volumes of manuscript poetry going the round of the
publishers at this moment, things that nobody can make head nor tail
of, stories in verse that begin in the middle, like _The Corsair_ and
_Lara_. They set up to be original, forsooth, and indulge in stanzas
that nobody can understand, and descriptive poetry after the pattern of
the younger men who discovered Delille, and imagine that they are doing
something new. Poets have been swarming like cockchafers for two years
past. I have lost twenty thousand francs through poetry in the last
twelvemonth. You ask Gabusson! There may be immortal poets somewhere in
the world; I know of some th