st box was occupied by the head of a department, to whom du
Bruel, maker of vaudevilles, owed a snug little sinecure in the
Treasury.

Lucien had gone from surprise to surprise since the dinner at
Flicoteaux's. For two months Literature had meant a life of poverty
and want; in Lousteau's room he had seen it at its cynical worst; in
the Wooden Galleries he had met Literature abject and Literature
insolent. The sharp contrasts of heights and depths; of compromise
with conscience; of supreme power and want of principle; of treachery
and pleasure; of mental elevation and bondage--all this made his head
swim, he seemed to be watching some strange unheard-of drama.

Finot was talking with the manager. "Do you think du Bruel's piece
will pay?" he asked.

"Du Bruel has tried to do something in Beaumarchais' style. Boulevard
audiences don't care for that kind of thing; they like harrowing
sensations; wit is not much appreciated here. Everything depends on
Florine and Coralie to-night; they are bewitchingly pretty and
graceful, wear very short skirts, and dance a Spanish dance, and
possibly they may carry off the piece with the public. The whole
affair is a gambling speculation. A few clever notices in the papers,
and I may make a hundred thousand crowns, if the play takes."

"Oh! come, it will only be a moderate success, I can see," said Finot.

"Three of the theatres have got up a plot," continued the manager;
"they will even hiss the piece, but I have made arrangements to defeat
their kind intentions. I have squared the men in their pay; they will
make a muddle of it. A couple of city men yonder have taken a hundred
tickets apiece to secure a triumph for Florine and Coralie, and given
them to acquaintances able and ready to act as chuckers out. The
fellows, having been paid twice, will go quietly, and a scene of that
sort always makes a good impression on the house."

"Two hundred tickets! What invaluable men!" exclaimed Finot.

"Yes. With two more actresses as handsomely kept as Florine and
Coralie, I should make something out of the business."

For the past two hours the word money had been sounding in Lucien's
ears as the solution of every difficulty. In the theatre as in the
publishing trade, and in the publishing trade as in the
newspaper-office--it was everywhere the same; there was not a word of
art or of glory. The steady beat of the great pendulum, Money, seemed
to fall like hammer-strokes on his heart and br