ave you thought over our friend's proposal?" asked Etienne
Lousteau, now an editor.

"To be sure," said Dauriat, lolling like a sultan in his chair. "I have
read the volume. And I submitted it to a man of taste, a good judge; for
I don't pretend to understand these things myself. I myself, my
friend, buy reputations ready-made, as the Englishman bought his love
affairs.--You are as great as a poet as you are handsome as a man, my
boy," pronounced Dauriat. "Upon my word and honor (I don't tell you that
as a publisher, mind), your sonnets are magnificent; no sign of effort
about them, as is natural when a man writes with inspiration and verve.
You know your craft, in fact, one of the good points of the new school.
Your volume of _Marguerites_ is a fine book, but there is no business in
it, and it is not worth my while to meddle with anything but a very big
affair. In conscience, I won't take your sonnets. It would be impossible
to push them; there is not enough in the thing to pay the expenses of
a big success. You will not keep to poetry besides; this book of yours
will be your first and last attempt of the kind. You are young; you
bring me the everlasting volume of early verse which every man of
letters writes when he leaves school, he thinks a lot of it at the time,
and laughs at it later on. Lousteau, your friend, has a poem put away
somewhere among his old socks, I'll warrant. Haven't you a poem that you
thought a good deal of once, Lousteau?" inquired Dauriat, with a knowing
glance at the other.

"How should I be writing prose otherwise, eh?" asked Lousteau.

"There, you see! He has never said a word to me about it, for our friend
understands business and the trade," continued Dauriat. "For me the
question is not whether you are a great poet, I know that," he added,
stroking down Lucien's pride; "you have a great deal, a very great deal
of merit; if I were only just starting in business, I should make the
mistake of publishing your book. But in the first place, my sleeping
partners and those at the back of me are cutting off my supplies; I
dropped twenty thousand francs over poetry last year, and that is enough
for them; they will not hear of any more just now, and they are my
masters. Nevertheless, that is not the question. I admit that you may be
a great poet, but will you be a prolific writer? Will you hatch sonnets
regularly? Will you run into ten volumes? Is there business in it? Of
course not. You will be a