"I take that compliment to myself, _cher confrere_; for though the
expenses of starting the Sens Commun, and the caution money lodged, were
found by a friend of mine, that was as a loan, which I have long since
repaid, and the property in the journal is now exclusively mine. I have
to thank you not only for your own brilliant contributions, but for those
of the colleagues you secured. Monsieur Savarin's piquant criticisms
were most valuable to us at starting. I regret to have lost his aid.
But as he has set up a new journal of his own, even he has not wit enough
to spare for another. _A propos_ of our contributors, I shall ask you to
present me to the fair author of The Artist's Daughter. I am of too
prosaic a nature to appreciate justly the merits of a _roman_; but I have
heard warm praise of this story from the young--they are the best judges
of that kind of literature; and I can at least understand the worth of a
contributor who trebled the sale of our journal. It is a misfortune to
us, indeed, that her work is completed, but I trust that the sum sent to
her through our publisher suffices to tempt her to favour us with another
roman in series."

"Mademoiselle Cicogna," said Rameau, with a somewhat sharper intonation
of his sharp voice, "has accepted for the republication of her _roman_ in
a separate form terms which attest the worth of her genius, and has had
offers from other journals for a serial tale of even higher amount than
the sum so generously sent to her through your publisher."

"Has she accepted them, Monsieur Rameau? If so, _tant pis pour vous_.
Pardon me, I mean that your salary suffers in proportion as the Sens
Commun declines in sale."

"She has not accepted them. I advised her not to do so until she could