“When you enlisted in the Sambre-et-Meuse, did they talk about danger?”

“Rather.”

“Very well?”

“Very well.  Go and see my nephew Finot, a good fellow, as good a fellow as you will find, if you can find him, that is, for he is like a fish, always on the move.  In his way of business, there is no writing, you see, it is setting others to write.  That sort like gallivanting about with actresses better than scribbling on sheets of paper, it seems.  Oh! they are queer customers, they are.  Hope I may have the honor of seeing you again.”

With that the cashier raised his formidable loaded cane, one of the defenders of Germainicus, and walked off, leaving Lucien in the street, as much bewildered by this picture of the newspaper world as he had formerly been by the practical aspects of literature at Messrs. Vidal and Porchon’s establishment.

Ten several times did Lucien repair to the Rue Feydeau in search of Andoche Finot, and ten times he failed to find that gentleman.  He went first thing in the morning; Finot had not come in.  At noon, Finot had gone out; he was breakfasting at such and such a cafe.  At the cafe, in answer to inquiries of the waitress, made after surmounting unspeakable repugnance, Lucien heard that Finot had just left the place.  Lucien, at length tired out, began to regard Finot as a mythical and fabulous character; it appeared simpler to waylay Etienne Lousteau at Flicoteaux’s.  That youthful journalist would, doubtless, explain the mysteries that enveloped the paper for which he wrote.

Since the day, a hundred times blessed, when Lucien made the acquaintance of Daniel d’Arthez, he had taken another seat at Flicoteaux’s.  The two friends dined side by side, talking in lowered voices of the higher literature, of suggested subjects, and ways of presenting, opening up, and developing them.  At the present time Daniel d’Arthez was correcting the manuscript of The Archer of Charles IX. He reconstructed whole chapters, and wrote the fine passages found therein, as well as the magnificent preface, which is, perhaps, the best thing in the book, and throws so much light on the work of the young school of literature.  One day it so happened that Daniel had been waiting for Lucien, who now sat with his friend’s hand in his own, when he saw Etienne Lousteau turn the door-handle.  Lucien instantly dropped Daniel’s hand, and told the waiter that he would dine at his old place by the counter.  D’Arthez gave Lucien a glance of divine kindness, in which reproach was wrapped in forgiveness.  The glance cut the poet to the quick; he took Daniel’s hand and grasped it anew.

“It is an important question of business for me; I will tell you about it afterwards,” said he.