al or Porchon, he listened to the
conversation.

"Will you take five hundred copies of me? If you will, I will let you
have them at five francs, and give fourteen to the dozen."

"What does that bring them in at?"

"Sixteen sous less."

"Four francs four sous?" said Vidal or Porchon, whichever it was.

"Yes," said the vendor.

"Credit your account?" inquired the purchaser.

"Old humbug! you would settle with me in eighteen months' time, with
bills at a twelvemonth."

"No. Settled at once," returned Vidal or Porchon.

"Bills at nine months?" asked the publisher or author, who evidently
was selling his book.

"No, my dear fellow, twelve months," returned one of the firm of
booksellers' agents.

There was a pause.

"You are simply cutting my throat!" said the visitor.

"But in a year's time shall we have placed a hundred copies of
_Leonide_?" said the other voice. "If books went off as fast as the
publishers would like, we should be millionaires, my good sir; but
they don't, they go as the public pleases. There is some one now
bringing out an edition of Scott's novels at eighteen sous per volume,
three livres twelve sous per copy, and you want me to give you more
for your stale remainders? No. If you mean me to push this novel of
yours, you must make it worth my while.--Vidal!"

A stout man, with a pen behind his ear, came down from his desk.

"How many copies of Ducange did you place last journey?" asked Porchon
of his partner.

"Two hundred of _Le Petit Vieillard de Calais_, but to sell them I was
obliged to cry down two books which pay in less commission, and
uncommonly fine 'nightingales' they are now.

(A "nightingale," as Lucien afterwards learned, is a bookseller's name
for books that linger on hand, perched out of sight in the loneliest
nooks in the shop.)

"And besides," added Vidal, "Picard is bringing out some novels, as
you know. We have been promised twenty per cent on the published price
to make the thing a success."

"Very well, at twelve months," the publisher answered in a piteous
voice, thunderstruck by Vidal's confidential remark.

"Is it an offer?" Porchon inquired curtly.

"Yes." The stranger went out. After he had gone, Lucien heard Porchon
say to Vidal:

"We have three hundred copies on order now. We will keep him waiting
for his settlement, sell the _Leonides_ for five francs net, settlement
in six months, and----"

"And that will be fifteen hundred francs into our po