"Sit down," said Forestier. "I will be back in five minutes."

And he disappeared through one of the three doors opening into the room.

A strange, special, indescribable odor, the odor of a newspaper office,
floated in the air of the room. Duroy remained motionless, slightly
intimidated, above all surprised. From time to time folk passed
hurriedly before him, coming in at one door and going out at another
before he had time to look at them.

They were now young lads, with an appearance of haste, holding in their
hand a sheet of paper which fluttered from the hurry of their progress;
now compositors, whose white blouses, spotted with ink, revealed a clean
shirt collar and cloth trousers like those of men of fashion, and who
carefully carried strips of printed paper, fresh proofs damp from the
press. Sometimes a gentleman entered rather too elegantly attired, his
waist too tightly pinched by his frock-coat, his leg too well set off by
the cut of his trousers, his foot squeezed into a shoe too pointed at
the toe, some fashionable reporter bringing in the echoes of the

evening.

Others, too, arrived, serious, important-looking men, wearing tall hats
with flat brims, as if this shape distinguished them from the rest of
mankind.

Forestier reappeared holding the arm of a tall, thin fellow, between
thirty and forty years of age, in evening dress, very dark, with his
moustache ends stiffened in sharp points, and an insolent and
self-satisfied bearing.

Forestier said to him: "Good night, dear master."

The other shook hands with him, saying: "Good night, my dear fellow,"
and went downstairs whistling, with his cane under his arm.

Duroy asked: "Who is that?"

"Jacques Rival, you know, the celebrated descriptive writer, the
duellist. He has just been correcting his proofs. Garin, Montel, and he
are the three best descriptive writers, for facts and points, we have in
Paris. He gets thirty thousand francs a year here for two articles a
week."

As they were leaving they met a short, stout man, with long hair and
untidy appearance, who was puffing as he came up the stairs.

Forestier bowed low to him. "Norbert de Varenne," said he, "the poet;
the author of '_Les Soleils Morts_'; another who gets long prices. Every
tale he writes for us costs three hundred francs, and the longest do not
run to two hundred lines. But let us turn into the Neapolitan _cafe_, I
am beginning to choke with thirst."

As soon as they we