ript volume
and he will believe in all the rest. A publisher asks to see your
manuscript, and gives you to understand that he is going to read it. Why
disturb his harmless vanity? They never read a manuscript; they would
not publish so many if they did. Well, Hector and I allowed it to leak
out that you might consider an offer of five thousand francs for three
thousand copies, in two editions. Let me have your _Archer_; the day
after to-morrow we are to breakfast with the publishers, and we will get
the upper hand of them."

"Who are they?" asked Lucien.

"Two partners named Fendant and Cavalier; they are two good fellows,
pretty straightforward in business. One of them used to be with Vidal
and Porchon, the other is the cleverest hand on the Quai des Augustins.
They only started in business last year, and have lost a little on
translations of English novels; so now my gentlemen have a mind to
exploit the native product. There is a rumor current that those dealers
in spoiled white paper are trading on other people's capital; but I
don't think it matters very much to you who finds the money, so long as
you are paid."

Two days later, the pair went to a breakfast in the Rue Serpente, in
Lucien's old quarter of Paris. Lousteau still kept his room in the
Rue de la Harpe; and it was in the same state as before, but this
time Lucien felt no surprise; he had been initiated into the life of
journalism; he knew all its ups and downs. Since that evening of his
introduction to the Wooden Galleries, he had been paid for many an
article, and gambled away the money along with the desire to write.
He had filled columns, not once but many times, in the ingenious ways
described by Lousteau on that memorable evening as they went to the
Palais Royal. He was dependent upon Barbet and Braulard; he trafficked
in books and theatre-tickets; he shrank no longer from any attack, from
writing any panegyric; and at this moment he was in some sort rejoicing
to make all he could out of Lousteau before turning his back on the
Liberals. His intimate knowledge of the party would stand him in good
stead in future. And Lousteau, on his side, was privately receiving five
hundred francs of purchase-money, under the name of commission, from
Fendant and Cavalier for introducing the future Sir Walter Scott to two
enterprising tradesmen in search of a French Author of "Waverley."

The firm of Fendant and Cavalier had started in business without any
capita