vindictive man of learning. Instead, I was stupid enough to be nettled
and to lose my head.

"Well," I retorted, "I must have a paying profession. That one or
another--what does it matter? Not everybody can belong to the Institute,
as your daughter remarked; not everybody can afford himself the luxury of
publishing, at his own expense, works that sell twenty-seven copies or
so."

I expected a thunderbolt, an explosion. Not a bit of it. M. Charnot
smiled outright with an air of extreme geniality.

"I perceive, sir, that you are given to gossiping with the booksellers."

"Why, yes, sir, now and then."

"It's a very pretty trait, at your age, to be already so strong in
bibliography. You will permit me, nevertheless, to add something to your
present stock of notions. A large sale is one thing to look at, but not
the right thing. Twenty-seven copies of a book, when read by twenty-
seven men of intelligence, outweigh a popular success. Would you believe
that one of my friends had no more than eight copies printed of a
mathematical treatise? Three of these he has given away. The other five
are still unsold. And that man, sir, is the first mathematician in
France!"

Mademoiselle Jeanne had taken it differently. With lifted chin and
reddened cheek she shot this sentence at me from the edge of a lip
disdainfully puckered: