ich were closing down on Cesar, and he therefore could
say nothing indiscreet to Madame Birotteau.

Popinot had promised Finot five hundred francs for every puff in a
first-class newspaper, and already there were ten of them; three hundred
francs for every second-rate paper, and there were ten of those,--in all
of them Cephalic Oil was mentioned three times a month! Finot saw three
thousand francs for himself out of these eight thousand--his first stake
on the vast green table of speculation! He therefore sprang like a lion
on his friends and acquaintances; he haunted the editorial rooms; he
wormed himself to the very bedsides of editors in the morning, and
prowled about the lobby of the theatres at night. "Think of my oil, dear
friend; I have no interest in it--bit of good fellowship, you know!"
"Gaudissart, jolly dog!" Such was the first and the last phrase of all
his allocutions. He begged for the bottom lines of the final columns of
the newspapers, and inserted articles for which he asked no pay from the
editors. Wily as a supernumerary who wants to be an actor, wide-awake
as an errand-boy who earns sixty francs a month, he wrote wheedling
letters, flattered the self-love of editors-in-chief, and did them base
services to get his articles inserted. Money, dinners, platitudes, all
served the purpose of his eager activity. With tickets for the theatre,
he bribed the printers who about midnight are finishing up the columns
of a newspaper with little facts and ready-made items kept on hand. At
that hour Finot hovered around printing-presses, busy, apparently,
with proofs to be corrected. Keeping friends with everybody, he
brought Cephalic Oil to a triumphant success over Pate de Regnauld, and
Brazilian Mixture, and all the other inventions which had the genius to
comprehend journalistic influence and the suction power that reiterated
newspaper articles have upon the public mind. In these early days of
their innocence many journalists were like cattle; they were unaware
of their inborn power; their heads were full of actresses,--Florine,
Tullia, Mariette, etc. They laid down the law to everybody, but they
picked up nothing for themselves. As Finot's schemes did not concern
actresses who wanted applause, nor plays to be puffed, nor vaudevilles
to be accepted, nor articles which had to be paid for,--on the contrary,
he paid money on occasion, and gave timely breakfasts,--there was soon
not a newspaper in Paris which did not