?"

"How?" des Lupeaulx asked carelessly. He saw a way of gaining credit
with the Marquise d'Espard for this service.

"He is under contract to write for Lousteau's paper, and we can the
better hold him to his agreement because he has not a sou. If we tickle
up the Keeper of the Seals with a facetious article, and prove that
Lucien wrote it, he will consider that Lucien is unworthy of the King's
favor. We have a plot on hand besides. Coralie will be ruined, and our
distinguished provincial will lose his head when his mistress is hissed
off the stage and left without an engagement. When once the patent is
suspended, we will laugh at the victim's aristocratic pretensions, and
allude to his mother the nurse and his father the apothecary. Lucien's
courage is only skindeep, he will collapse; we will send him back to
his provinces. Nathan made Florine sell me Matifat's sixth share of the
review, I was able to buy; Dauriat and I are the only proprietors now;
we might come to an understanding, you and I, and the review might
be taken over for the benefit of the Court. I stipulated for the
restitution of my sixth before I undertook to protect Nathan and
Florine; they let me have it, and I must help them; but I wished to know
first how Lucien stood----"

"You deserve your name," said des Lupeaulx. "I like a man of your
sort----"

"Very well. Then can you arrange a definite engagement for Florine?"
asked Finot.

"Yes, but rid us of Lucien, for Rastignac and de Marsay never wish to
hear of him again."

"Sleep in peace," returned Finot. "Nathan and Merlin will always have
articles ready for Gaillard, who will promise to take them; Lucien will
never get a line into the paper. We will cut off his supplies. There
is only Martainville's paper left him in which to defend himself and
Coralie; what can a single paper do against so many?"

"I will let you know the weak points of the Ministry; but get Lucien to
write that article and hand over the manuscript," said des Lupeaulx, who
refrained carefully from informing Finot that Lucien's promised patent
was nothing but a joke.

When des Lupeaulx had gone, Finot went to Lucien, and taking the
good-natured tone which deceives so many victims, he explained that he
could not possibly afford to lose his contributor, and at the same time
he shrank from taking proceedings which might ruin him with his friends
of the other side. Finot himself liked a man who was strong enough to
change his