went back to him--he
feared to be caught in his turn.

"Well," said Lousteau, "shall we go on with our business?"

"Eh! my boy," returned Barbet in a familiar tone; "I have six thousand
volumes of stock on hand at my place, and paper is not gold, as the old
bookseller said. Trade is dull."

"If you went into his shop, my dear Lucien," said Etienne, turning
to his friend, "you would see an oak counter from some bankrupt wine
merchant's sale, and a tallow dip, never snuffed for fear it should burn
too quickly, making darkness visible. By that anomalous light you descry
rows of empty shelves with some difficulty. An urchin in a blue blouse
mounts guard over the emptiness, and blows his fingers, and shuffles
his feet, and slaps his chest, like a cabman on the box. Just look about
you! there are no more books there than I have here. Nobody could guess
what kind of shop he keeps."

"Here is a bill at three months for a hundred francs," said Barbet, and
he could not help smiling as he drew it out of his pocket; "I will take
your old books off your hands. I can't pay cash any longer, you see;
sales are too slow. I thought that you would be wanting me; I had not
a penny, and I made a bill simply to oblige you, for I am not fond of
giving my signature."

"So you want my thanks and esteem into the bargain, do you?"

"Bills are not met with sentiment," responded Barbet; "but I will accept
your esteem, all the same."

"But I want gloves, and the perfumers will be base enough to decline
your paper," said Lousteau. "Stop, there is a superb engraving in the
top drawer of the chest there, worth eighty francs, proof before letters
and after letterpress, for I have written a pretty droll article upon
it. There was something to lay hold of in _Hippocrates refusing the
Presents of Artaxerxes_. A fine engraving, eh? Just the thing to suit
all the doctors, who are refusing the extravagant gifts of Parisian
satraps. You will find two or three dozen novels underneath it. Come,
now, take the lot and give me forty francs."

"_Forty francs_!" exclaimed the bookseller, emitting a cry like the
squall of a frightened fowl. "Twenty at the very most! And then I may
never see the money again," he added.

"Where are your twenty francs?" asked Lousteau.

"My word, I don't know that I have them," said Barbet, fumbling in his
pockets. "Here they are. You are plundering me; you have an ascendency
over me----"

"Come, let us be off," said Loust