ill pleased.

"Another piece of business, my boy!" exclaimed Dauriat. "Why, I have
eleven hundred manuscripts on hand, as you know! Yes, gentlemen, I
have eleven hundred manuscripts submitted to me at this moment; ask
Gabusson. I shall soon be obliged to start a department to keep
account of the stock of manuscripts, and a special office for reading
them, and a committee to vote on their merits, with numbered counters
for those who attend, and a permanent secretary to draw up the minutes
for me. It will be a kind of local branch of the Academie, and the
Academicians will be better paid in the Wooden Galleries than at the
Institut."

"'Tis an idea," said Blondet.

"A bad idea," returned Dauriat. "It is not my business to take stock
of the lucubrations of those among you who take to literature because
they cannot be capitalists, and there is no opening for them as
bootmakers, nor corporals, nor domestic servants, nor officials, nor
bailiffs. Nobody comes here until he has made a name for himself! Make
a name for yourself, and you will find gold in torrents. I have made
three great men in the last two years; and lo and behold three
examples of ingratitude! Here is Nathan talking of six thousand francs
for the second edition of his book, which cost me three thousand
francs in reviews, and has not brought in a thousand yet. I paid a
thousand francs for Blondet's two articles, besides a dinner, which
cost me five hundred----"

"But if all booksellers talked as you do, sir, how could a man publish
his first book at all?" asked Lucien. Blondet had gone down