ughed in your face if you happened to ask for it,
after you had paid your two sous admission. "Monsieur is joking. We have
got five copies, and we let them out at ten sous each for half an hour:
that's the time it takes to read M. Sue's story. We have one copy here,
and if monsieur likes to take his turn he may do so, though he will
probably have to wait for three or four hours."

At last the guileless demoiselle behind the counter found even a more
effective way of fleecing her clients. The cabinets de lecture altered
their fees, and the two sous, which until then had conferred the right
of staying as long as one liked, were transformed into the price of
admission for one hour. Each reader received a ticket on entering,
stating the time, and the shrewd caissiere made the round every ten
minutes. I may say without exaggeration that the days on which the
instalment of fiction was "crowded out," there was a general air of
listlessness about Paris. And, after the first few weeks, this happened
frequently; for by that time the Bertins had become quite as clever as
their formidable rival, the proprietor and editor of the
_Constitutionnel_, the famous Dr. Veron, whom I have already mentioned,
but of whom I shall have occasion to speak again and again, for he was
one of the most notable characters in the Paris of my early manhood. But
to return for a moment to "Les Mysteres de Paris" and its author.

The serial, then, was frequently interrupted for one or two days,
without notice, however, to the readers; on its resumption there was a
nice little paragraph to assure the "grandes dames de par le monde," as
well as their maids, with regard to the health of M. Sue, who was
supposed to have been too ill to work. The public took all this _au
grand serieux_. They either chose to forget, or were ignorant of the
fact, that a novel of that kind, especially in the early days of serial
feuilleton, was not delivered to the editor bit by bit. Sue, great man
as he was, would not have dared to inaugurate the system only adopted
somewhat later by Alexandre Dumas the Elder, namely, that of writing
"from hand to mouth." These paragraphs served a dual purpose--they
whetted the lady and other readers' interest in the author, and informed
the indifferent ones how great that interest was. For these paragraphs
were, or professed to be,--I really believe they were,--the courteous
replies to hundreds of kind inquiries which the author "could not
ackn