much accustomed to his work in the office
as to the fatigue duty of former days, understanding as much or as
little about it as the why and wherefore of forced marches made by the
Emperor's orders. Lucien was inspired with the bold idea of deceiving
that formidable functionary. He settled his hat on his head, and walked
into the editor's office as if he were quite at home.

Looking eagerly about him, he beheld a round table covered with a green
cloth, and half-a-dozen cherry-wood chairs, newly reseated with straw.
The colored brick floor had not been waxed, but it was clean; so clean
that the public, evidently, seldom entered the room. There was a mirror
above the chimney-piece, and on the ledge below, amid a sprinkling of
visiting-cards, stood a shopkeeper's clock, smothered with dust, and a
couple of candlesticks with tallow dips thrust into their sockets. A few
antique newspapers lay on the table beside an inkstand containing some
black lacquer-like substance, and a collection of quill pens twisted
into stars. Sundry dirty scraps of paper, covered with almost
undecipherable hieroglyphs, proved to be manuscript articles torn across
the top by the compositor to check off the sheets as they were set up.
He admired a few rather clever caricatures, sketched on bits of brown
paper by somebody who evidently had tried to kill time by killing
something else to keep his hand in.

Other works of art were pinned in the cheap sea-green wall-paper. These
consisted of nine pen-and-ink illustrations for _Le Solitaire_. The work
had attained to such an unheard-of European popularity, that journalists
evidently were tired of it.--"The Solitary makes his first appearance
in the provinces; sensation among the women.--The Solitary perused at
a chateau.--Effect of the Solitary on domestic animals.--The Solitary
explained to savage tribes, with the most brilliant results.--The
Solitary translated into Chinese and presented by the author to the
Emperor at Pekin.--The Mont Sauvage, Rape of Elodie."--(Lucien though
this caricature very shocking, but he could not help laughing at
it.)--"The Solitary under a canopy conducted in triumphal procession by
the newspapers.--The Solitary breaks the press to splinters, and wounds
the printers.--Read backwards, the superior beauties of the Solitary
produce a sensation at the Academie."--On a newspaper-wrapper Lucien
noticed a sketch of a contributor holding out his hat, and beneath it
the words, "Fino