"Why, we read the newspapers as it is!"

"Not bad that, for a journalist! But hold your tongue, we are going
through a crowd of subscribers. Journalism, look you, is the religion
of modern society, and has even gone a little further."

"What do you mean?"

"Its pontiffs are not obliged to believe in it any more than the
people are."

Chatting thus, like good fellows who have known their _De Viris
illustribus_ for years past, they reached a mansion in the Rue Joubert.

Emile was a journalist who had acquired more reputation by dint of
doing nothing than others had derived from their achievements. A bold,
caustic, and powerful critic, he possessed all the qualities that his
defects permitted. An outspoken giber, he made numberless epigrams on
a friend to his face; but would defend him, if absent, with courage
and loyalty. He laughed at everything, even at his own career. Always
impecunious, he yet lived, like all men of his calibre, plunged in
unspeakable indolence. He would fling some word containing volumes in
the teeth of folk who could not put a syllable of sense into their
books. He lavished promises that he never fulfilled; he made a pillow
of his luck and reputation, on which he slept, and ran the risk of
waking up to old age in a workhouse. A steadfast friend to the gallows
foot, a cynical swaggerer with a child's simplicity, a worker only
from necessity or caprice.