"Where is the newspaper put together?" Lucien said to himself.

"The newspaper?" repeated the officer, as he received the rest of the
stamp money from Coloquinte, "the newspaper?--broum! broum!--(Mind you
are round at the printers' by six o'clock to-morrow, old chap, to send
off the porters.)--The newspaper, sir, is written in the street, at
the writers' houses, in the printing-office between eleven and twelve
o'clock at night. In the Emperor's time, sir, these shops for spoiled
paper were not known. Oh! he would have cleared them out with four men
and a corporal; they would not have come over _him_ with their talk. But
that is enough of prattling. If my nephew finds it worth his while,
and so long as they write for the son of the Other (broum! broum!)
----after all, there is no harm in that. Ah! by the way, subscribers
don't seem to me to be advancing in serried columns; I shall leave my
post."

"You seem to know all about the newspaper, sir," Lucien began.

"From a business point of view, broum! broum!" coughed the soldier,
clearing his throat. "From three to five francs per column, according
to ability.--Fifty lines to a column, forty letters to a line; no
blanks; there you are! As for the staff, they are queer fish, little
youngsters whom I wouldn't take on for the commissariat; and because
they make fly tracks on sheets of white paper, they look down,
forsooth, on an old Captain of Dragoons of the Guard, that retired
with a major's rank after entering every European capital with
Napoleon."

The soldier of Napoleon brushed his coat, and made as if he would go