urish of trumpets, all
applauded enough to split their gloves.

In one of the theatre lobbies, behind a bill-board pasted over with old
placards, Amedee Violette heard with delight the sound of the applause
which seemed like a shower of hailstones. He dared not think of it! Was
it really his poem that produced so much excitement, which had thawed
this cold public? Soon he did not doubt it, for Jocquelet, who had just
been recalled three times, threw himself into the poet's arms and glued
his perspiring, painted face to his.

"Well, my little one, I have done it!" he exclaimed, bursting with
gratification and vanity. "You heard how I caught them!"

Immediately twenty, thirty, a hundred spectators appeared, most of
them very correct in white cravats, but all eager and with beaming
countenances, asking to see the author and the interpreter, and to
be presented to them, that they might congratulate them with an
enthusiastic word and a shake of the hand. Yes! it was a success, an
instantaneous one. It was certainly that rare tropical flower of the
Parisian greenhouse which blossoms out so seldom, but so magnificently.

One large, very common-looking man, wearing superb diamond
shirt-buttons, came in his turn to shake Amedee's hand, and in a hoarse,
husky voice which would have been excellent to propose tickets "cheaper
than at the office!" he asked for the manuscript of the poem that had
just been recited.

"It is so that I may put you upon the first page of my tomorrow's
edition, young man, and I publish eighty thousand. Victor Gaillard,
editor of 'Le Tapage'. Does that please you?"

He took the manuscript without listening to the thanks of the poet, who
trembled with joy at the thought that his work had caught the fancy of
this Barnum of the press, the foremost advertiser in France and Europe,
and that his verses would meet the eyes of two hundred thousand readers.

Yes, it was certainly a success, and he experienced the first bitterness
of it as soon as he arrived the next morning at the Cafe de Seville,
where he now went every two or three days at the hour for absinthe. His
verses had appeared in that morning's Tapage, printed in large type and
headed by a few lines of praise written by Victor Gaillard, a la Barnum.
As soon as Amedee entered the cafe he saw that he was the object of
general attention, and the lyric gentlemen greeted him with acclamations
and bravos; but at certain expressions of countenance, const