“We have three hundred copies on order now.  We will keep him waiting for his settlement, sell the Leonides for five francs net, settlement in six months, and——­”

“And that will be fifteen hundred francs into our pockets,” said Vidal.

“Oh, I saw quite well that he was in a fix.  He is giving Ducange four thousand francs for two thousand copies.”

Lucien cut Vidal short by appearing in the entrance of the den.

“I have the honor of wishing you a good day, gentlemen,” he said, addressing both partners.  The booksellers nodded slightly.

“I have a French historical romance after the style of Scott.  It is called The Archer of Charles IX.; I propose to offer it to you——­”

Porchon glanced at Lucien with lustreless eyes, and laid his pen down on the desk.  Vidal stared rudely at the author.

“We are not publishing booksellers, sir; we are booksellers’ agents,” he said.  “When we bring out a book ourselves, we only deal in well-known names; and we only take serious literature besides—­history and epitomes.”

“But my book is very serious.  It is an attempt to set the struggle between Catholics and Calvinists in its true light; the Catholics were supporters of absolute monarchy, and the Protestants for a republic.”

“M.  Vidal!” shouted an assistant.  Vidal fled.

“I don’t say, sir, that your book is not a masterpiece,” replied Porchon, with scanty civility, “but we only deal in books that are ready printed.  Go and see somebody that buys manuscripts.  There is old Doguereau in the Rue du Coq, near the Louvre, he is in the romance line.  If you had only spoken sooner, you might have seen Pollet, a competitor of Doguereau and of the publisher in the Wooden Galleries.”

“I have a volume of poetry——­”

“M.  Porchon!” somebody shouted.

“Poetry!” Porchon exclaimed angrily.  “For what do you take me?” he added, laughing in Lucien’s face.  And he dived into the regions of the back shop.

Lucien went back across the Pont Neuf absorbed in reflection.  From all that he understood of this mercantile dialect, it appeared that books, like cotton nightcaps, were to be regarded as articles of merchandise to be sold dear and bought cheap.

“I have made a mistake,” said Lucien to himself; but, all the same, this rough-and-ready practical aspect of literature made an impression upon him.

In the Rue du Coq he stopped in front of a modest-looking shop, which he had passed before.  He saw the inscription DOGUEREAU, BOOKSELLER, painted above it in yellow letters on a green ground, and remembered that he had seen the name at the foot of the title-page of several novels at Blosse’s reading-room.  In he went, not without the inward trepidation which a man of any imagination feels at the prospect of a battle.  Inside the shop he discovered an odd-looking old man, one of the queer characters of the trade in the days of the Empire.