delightful prose writer; you have too much
sense to spoil your style with tagging rhymes together. You have a
chance to make thirty thousand francs per annum by writing for the
papers, and you will not exchange that chance for three thousand
francs made with difficulty by your hemistiches and strophes and
tomfoolery----"

"You know that he is on the paper, Dauriat?" put in Lousteau.

"Yes," Dauriat answered. "Yes, I saw his article, and in his own
interests I decline the _Marguerites_. Yes, sir, in six months' time I
shall have paid you more money for the articles that I shall ask you to
write than for your poetry that will not sell."

"And fame?" said Lucien.

Dauriat and Lousteau laughed.

"Oh dear!" said Lousteau, "there be illusions left."

"Fame means ten years of sticking to work, and a hundred thousand francs
lost or made in the publishing trade. If you find anybody mad enough to
print your poetry for you, you will feel some respect for me in
another twelvemonth, when you have had time to see the outcome of the
transaction."

"Have you the manuscript here?" Lucien asked coldly.

"Here it is, my friend," said Dauriat. The publisher's manner towards
Lucien had sweetened singularly.

Lucien took up the roll without looking at the string, so sure he felt
that Dauriat had read his _Marguerites_. He went out with Lousteau,
seemingly neither disconcerted nor dissatisfied. Dauriat went with them
into the shop, talking of his newspaper and Lousteau's daily, while
Lucien played with the manuscript of the _Marguerites_.

"Do you suppose that Dauriat has read your sonnets or sent them to any
one else?" Etienne Lousteau snatched an opportunity to whisper.

"Yes," said Lucien.

"Look at the string." Lucien looked down at the blot of ink, and saw
that the mark on the string still coincided; he turned white with rage.

"Which of the sonnets was it that you particularly liked?" he asked,
turning to the publisher.

"They are all of them remarkable, my friend; but the sonnet on the
_Marguerite_ is delightful, the closing thought is fine, and exquisitely
expressed. I felt sure from that sonnet that your prose work would
command a success, and I spoke to Finot about you at once. Write
articles for us, and we will pay you well for them. Fame is a very fine
thing, you see, but don't forget the practical and solid, and take every
chance that turns up. When you have made money, you can write poetry."

The poet dashed o