and adorably
impertinent of late.

"Yes, my friend; do you think I should have come here in such a hurry
but for that? That terrible article of yours is very well written, worse
luck. Oh! you have a very great gift, my boy. Take my advice and make
the most of your vogue," he added, with good humor, which masked the
extreme insolence of the speech. "But have you yourself a copy of the
paper? Have you seen your article in print?"

"Not yet," said Lucien, "though this is the first long piece of prose
which I have published; but Hector will have sent a copy to my address
in the Rue Charlot."

"Here--read!"... cried Dauriat, copying Talma's gesture in _Manlius_.

Lucien took the paper but Coralie snatched it from him.

"The first-fruits of your pen belong to me, as you well know," she
laughed.

Dauriat was unwontedly courtier-like and complimentary. He was afraid of
Lucien, and therefore he asked him to a great dinner which he was giving
to a party of journalists towards the end of the week, and Coralie was
included in the invitation. He took the _Marguerites_ away with him
when he went, asking _his_ poet to look in when he pleased in the Wooden
Galleries, and the agreement should be ready for his signature.
Dauriat never forgot the royal airs with which he endeavored to overawe
superficial observers, and to impress them with the notion that he was
a Maecenas rather than a publisher; at this moment he left the three
thousand francs, waving away in lordly fashion the receipt which Lucien
offered, kissed Coralie's hand, and took his departure.

"Well, dear love, would you have seen many of these bits of paper if you
had stopped in your hole in the Rue de Cluny, prowling about among the
musty old books in the Bibliotheque de Sainte-Genevieve?" asked Coralie,
for she knew the whole story of Lucien's life by this time. "Those
little friends of yours in the Rue des Quatre-Vents are great ninnies,
it seems to me."

His brothers of the _cenacle_! And Lucien could hear the verdict and
laugh.

He had seen himself in print; he had just experienced the ineffable joy
of the author, that first pleasurable thrill of gratified vanity which
comes but once. The full import and bearing of his article became
apparent to him as he read and re-read it. The garb of print is to
manuscript as the stage is to women; it brings beauties and defects to
light, killing and giving life; the fine thoughts and the faults alike
stare you in the f