. Finot will
be a deputy and proprietor of a great newspaper, and we shall be
whatever we meant to be--peers of France, or prisoner for debt in
Sainte-Pelagie."

"So Finot will sell his paper to the highest bidder among the
Ministers, just as he sells favorable notices to Mme. Bastienne and
runs down Mlle. Virginie, saying that Mme. Bastienne's bonnets are
superior to the millinery which they praised at first!" said Lucien,
recollecting that scene in the office.

"My dear fellow, you are a simpleton," Lousteau remarked drily. "Three
years ago Finot was walking on the uppers of his boots, dining for
eighteen sous at Tabar's, and knocking off a tradesman's prospectus
(when he could get it) for ten francs. His clothes hung together by
some miracle as mysterious as the Immaculate Conception. _Now_, Finot
has a paper of his own, worth about a hundred thousand francs. What
with subscribers who pay and take no copies, genuine subscriptions,
and indirect taxes levied by his uncle, he is making twenty thousand
francs a year. He dines most sumptuously every day; he has set up a
cabriolet within the last month; and now, at last, behold him the
editor of a weekly review with a sixth share, for which he will not
pay a penny, a salary of five hundred francs per month, and another
thousand francs for supplying matter which costs him nothing, and for
which the firm pays. You yourself, to begin with, if Finot consents to
pay you fifty francs per sheet, will be only too glad to let him have
two or three articles for nothing. When you are in his position, you
can judge Finot; a man can only be tried by his peers. And for you, is
there not an immense future opening out before you, if you will
blindly minister to his enmity, attack at Finot's bidding, and praise
when he gives the word? Suppose that you yourself wish to be revenged
upon somebody, you can break a foe or friend on the wheel. You have
only to say to me, 'Lousteau, let us put an end to So-and-so,' and we
will kill him by a phrase put in the paper morning by morning; and
afterwards you can slay the slain with a solemn article in Finot's
weekly. Indeed, if it is a matter of capital importance to you, Finot
would allow you to bludgeon your man in a big paper with ten or twelve
thousand subscribers, _if_ you make yourself indispensable to Finot."

"Then are you sure that Florine can bring her druggist to make the
bargain?" asked Lucien, dazzled by these prospects.

"Quite sure.