"Come in, my boy," answered Dauriat, allowing Finot to pass before
him. Then, intimating to some ten persons still waiting for him that
he was engaged, he likewise was about to disappear when Lucien
impatiently stopped him.

"You are keeping my manuscript. When shall I have an answer?"

"Oh, come back in three or four days, my little poet, and we will
see."

Lousteau hurried Lucien away; he had not time to take leave of Vernou
and Blondet and Raoul Nathan, nor to salute General Foy nor Benjamin
Constant, whose book on the Hundred Days was just about to appear.
Lucien scarcely caught a glimpse of fair hair, a refined oval-shaped
face, keen eyes, and the pleasant-looking mouth belonging to the man
who had played the part of a Potemkin to Mme. de Stael for twenty
years, and now was at war with the Bourbons, as he had been at war
with Napoleon. He was destined to win his cause and to die stricken to
earth by his victory.

"What a shop!" exclaimed Lucien, as he took his place in the cab
beside Lousteau.

"To the Panorama-Dramatique; look sharp, and you shall have thirty
sous," Etienne Lousteau called to the cabman.--"Dauriat is a rascal
who sells books to the amount of fifteen or sixteen hundred thousand
francs every year. He is a kind of Minister of Literature," Lousteau
continued. His self-conceit had been pleasantly tickled, and he was
showing off before Lucien. "Dauriat is just as grasping as Barbet, but