price of some work in demand, and pay him with his own bills instead
of cash. Barbet was something of a scholar; he had had just enough
education to make him careful to steer clear of modern poetry and
modern romances. He had a liking for small speculations, for books of
a popular kind which might be bought outright for a thousand francs
and exploited at pleasure, such as the _Child's History of France_,
_Book-keeping in Twenty Lessons_, and _Botany for Young Ladies_. Two
or three times already he had allowed a good book to slip through his
fingers; the authors had come and gone a score of times while he
hesitated, and could not make up his mind to buy the manuscript. When
reproached for his pusillanimity, he was wont to produce the account
of a notorious trial taken from the newspapers; it cost him nothing,
and had brought him in two or three thousand francs.

Barbet was the type of bookseller that goes in fear and trembling;
lives on bread and walnuts; rarely puts his name to a bill; filches
little profits on invoices; makes deductions, and hawks his books
about himself; heaven only knows where they go, but he sells them
somehow, and gets paid for them. Barbet was the terror of printers,
who could not tell what to make of him; he paid cash and took off the
discount; he nibbled at their invoices whenever he thought they were
pressed for money; and when he had fleeced a man once, he never went
back to him--he feared to be caught in his turn.

"Well," said Lousteau, "shall we go on with our business?"

"Eh! my boy," returned Barbet in a familiar tone; "I have six thousand
volumes of stock on hand at my place, and paper is not gold, as the
old bookseller said. Trade is dull."