restaurants, wasting their time and talent and our money."

He sat down.

"Your romance is not bad, young man. I was a professor of rhetoric
once; I know French history, there are some capital things in it. You
have a future before you, in fact."

"Oh! sir."

"No; I tell you so. We may do business together. I will buy your
romance."

Lucien's heart swelled and throbbed with gladness. He was about to
enter the world of literature; he should see himself in print at last.

"I will give you four hundred francs," continued Doguereau in honeyed
accents, and he looked at Lucien with an air which seemed to betoken
an effort of generosity.

"The volume?" queried Lucien.

"For the romance," said Doguereau, heedless of Lucien's surprise. "In
ready money," he added; "and you shall undertake to write two books
for me every year for six years. If the first book is out of print in
six months, I will give you six hundred francs for the others. So, if
you write two books each year, you will be making a hundred francs a
month; you will have a sure income, you will be well off. There are
some authors whom I only pay three hundred francs for a romance; I
give two hundred for translations of English books. Such prices would