doctors,
and the difficulty of following this advice in his position. He was told
to spend the winter in the South, but how could he? He was married, and
a journalist in a good position.

"I am political editor of the _Vie Francaise_. I write the proceedings
in the Senate for the _Salut_, and from time to time literary criticisms
for the _Planete_. That is so. I have made my way."

Duroy looked at him with surprise. He was greatly changed, matured. He
had now the manner, bearing, and dress of a man in a good position and
sure of himself, and the stomach of a man who dines well. Formerly he
had been thin, slight, supple, heedless, brawling, noisy, and always
ready for a spree. In three years Paris had turned him into someone
quite different, stout and serious, and with some white hairs about his
temples, though he was not more than twenty-seven.

Forestier asked: "Where are you going?"

Duroy answered: "Nowhere; I am just taking a stroll before turning in."

"Well, will you come with me to the _Vie Francaise_, where I have some
proofs to correct, and then we will take a bock together?"

"All right."

They began to walk on, arm-in-arm, with that easy familiarity existing
between school-fellows and men in the same regiment.

"What are you doing in Paris?" asked Forestier.

Duroy shrugged his shoulders. "Simply starving. As soon as I finished my
term of service I came here--to make a fortune, or rather for the sake
of living in Paris; and for six months I have been a clerk in the
offices of the Northern Railway at fifteen hundred francs a year,
nothing more."

Forestier murmured: "Hang it, that's not much!"

"I should think not. But how can I get out of it? I am alone; I don't
know anyone; I can get no one to recommend me. It is not goodwill that
is lacking, but means."

His comrade scanned him from head to foot, like a practical man
examining a subject, and then said, in a tone of conviction: "You see,
my boy, everything depends upon assurance here. A clever fellow can more
easily become a minister than an under-secretary. One must obtrude one's
self on people; not ask things of them. But how the deuce is it that you
could not get hold of anything better than a clerk's berth on the
Northern Railway?"

Duroy replied: "I looked about everywhere, but could not find anything.
But I have something in view just now; I have been offered a
riding-master's place at Pellerin's. There I shall get three thousand
fran