go to make up that word, since I learned that two
or three of my old schoolfellows worked up the capital of the
Angoumois to this pitch of enthusiasm.

"If you could contrive to slip a few lines as to my reception in
among the news items, I should be several inches taller for it
here; and besides, I should make Mme. la Prefete feel that, if I
have not friends, I have some credit, at any rate, with the
Parisian press. I give up none of my hopes, and I will return the
compliment. If you want a good, solid, substantial article for
some magazine or other, I have time enough now to think something
out. I only say the word, my dear friend; I count upon you as you
may count upon me, and I am yours sincerely.

"LUCIEN DE R.

"P. S.--Send the things to the coach office to wait until called
for."

Lucien held up his head again. In this mood he wrote the letter, and as
he wrote his thoughts went back to Paris. He had spent six days in the
provinces, and the uneventful quietness of provincial life had already
entered into his soul; his mind returned to those dear old miserable
days with a vague sense of regret. The Comtesse du Chatelet filled
his thoughts for a whole week; and at last he came to attach so much
importance to his reappearance, that he hurried down to the coach office
in L'Houmeau after nightfall in a perfect agony of suspense, like a
woman who has set her last hopes upon a new dress, and waits in despair
until it arrives.

"Ah! Lousteau, all your treasons are forgiven," he said to himself, as
he eyed the packages, and knew from the shape of them that everything
had been sent. Inside the hatbox he found a note from Lousteau:--

FLORINE'S DRAWING-ROOM.

"MY DEAR BOY,--The tailor behaved very well; but as thy profound
retrospective glance led thee to forbode, the cravats, the hats,
and the silk hosen perplexed our souls, for there was nothing in
our purse to be perplexed thereby. As said Blondet, so say we;
there is a fortune awaiting the establishment which will supply
young men with inexpensive articles on credit; for when we do not
pay in the beginning, we pay dear in the end. And by the by, did
not the great Napoleon, who missed a voyage to the Indies for want
of boots, say that, 'If a thing is easy, it is never done?' So
everything went well--except the boots.