Again the Castanados' dainty parlor, more dainty than ever. No one
there was in evening dress, though with its privacy "modified as the
Castanados pleased," it had gathered a company of seven.

Chester, not yet come, would make an eighth. Madame was in her special
chair. And here, besides her husband, were both M. and Mme. De l'Isle,
Mme. Alexandre and Scipion Beloiseau. The seventh was M. Placide
Dubroca, perfumer; a man of fifty or so, his black hair and mustache
inclined to curl and his eyes spirited yet sympathetic. Just entered,
he was telling how consumed with regret his wife was, to be kept
away--by an old promise to an old friend to go with her to that
wonderful movie, "Les Trois Mousquetaires," when Chester came in and
almost at once a general debate on Mlle. Chapdelaine's manuscript was
in full coruscation.

"In the firs' place," one said--though the best place he could seize
was the seventeenth--"firs' place of all--competition! My frien's, we
cannot hope to nig-otiate with that North in the old manner which we
are proud, a few of us yet, to _con_-tinue in the rue Royale. Every
publisher----"

Mme. Castanado had a quotation that could not wait: "We got to be 'wise
like snake' an' innocent like pigeon'!'"

"Precizely! Every publisher approach' mus' know he's bidding agains'
every other! Maybe they are honess men, and _if_ so they'll be
rij-oice'!"

A non-listener was trying to squeeze in: "And sec'--and sec'--and