has
refused the handsomest proposals; she is faithful to Camusot, who lets
her live in peace. So you are her first love. The first sight of you
went to her heart like a pistol-shot, Florine has gone to her
dressing-room to bring the girl to reason. She is crying over your
cruelty; she has forgotten her part, the play will go to pieces, and
good-day to the engagement at the Gymnase which Camusot had planned
for her."

"Pooh! . . . Poor thing!" said Lucien. Every instinct of vanity was
tickled by the words; he felt his heart swell high with self-conceit.
"More adventures have befallen me in this one evening, my dear fellow,
than in all the first eighteen years of my life." And Lucien related
the history of his love affairs with Mme. de Bargeton, and of the
cordial hatred he bore the Baron du Chatelet.

"Stay though! the newspaper wants a _bete noire_; we will take him up.
The Baron is a buck of the Empire and a Ministerialist; he is the man
for us; I have seen him many a time at the Opera. I can see your great
lady as I sit here; she is often in the Marquise d'Espard's box. The
Baron is paying court to your lady love, a cuttlefish bone that she
is. Wait! Finot has just sent a special messenger round to say that
they are short of copy at the office. Young Hector Merlin has left
them in the lurch because they did not pay for white lines. Finot, in
despair, is knocking off an article against the Opera. Well now, my
dear fellow, you can do this play; listen to it and think it over, and
I will go to the manager's office and think out three columns about
your man and your disdainful fair one. They will be in no pleasant
predicament to-morrow."

"So this is how a newspaper is written?" said Lucien.

"It is always like this," answered Lousteau. "These ten months that I
have been a journalist, they have always run short of copy at eight
o'clock in the evening."

Manuscript sent to the printer is spoken of as "copy," doubtless
because the writers are supposed to send in a fair copy of their work;
or possibly the word is ironically derived from the Latin word _copia_,
for copy is invariably scarce.

"We always mean to have a few numbers ready in advance, a grand idea
that will never be realized," continued Lousteau. "It is ten o'clock,
you see, and not a line has been written. I shall ask Vernou and
Nathan for a score of epigrams on deputies, or on 'Chancellor Cruzoe,'
or on the Ministry, or on friends of ours if it needs mu