public cynicism in keeping with the haunt, is now unknown even at masquerades or the famous public balls.  It was an appalling, gay scene.  The dazzling white flesh of the women’s necks and shoulders stood out in magnificent contrast against the men’s almost invariably sombre costumes.  The murmur of voices, the hum of the crowd, could be heard even in the middle of the garden as a sort of droning bass, interspersed with fioriture of shrill laughter or clamor of some rare dispute.  You saw gentlemen and celebrities cheek by jowl with gallows-birds.  There was something indescribably piquant about the anomalous assemblage; the most insensible of men felt its charm, so much so, that, until the very last moment, Paris came hither to walk up and down on the wooden planks laid over the cellars where men were at work on the new buildings; and when the squalid wooden erections were finally taken down, great and unanimous regret was felt.

Ladvocat the bookseller had opened a shop but a few days since in the angle formed by the central passage which crossed the galleries; and immediately opposite another bookseller, now forgotten, Dauriat, a bold and youthful pioneer, who opened up the paths in which his rival was to shine.  Dauriat’s shop stood in the row which gave upon the garden; Ladvocat’s, on the opposite side, looked out upon the court.  Dauriat’s establishment was divided into two parts; his shop was simply a great trade warehouse, and the second room was his private office.

Lucien, on this first visit to the Wooden Galleries, was bewildered by a sight which no novice can resist.  He soon lost the guide who befriended him.

“If you were as good-looking as yonder young fellow, I would give you your money’s worth,” a woman said, pointing out Lucien to an old man.

Lucien slunk through the crowd like a blind man’s dog, following the stream in a state of stupefaction and excitement difficult to describe.  Importuned by glances and white-rounded contours, dazzled by the audacious display of bared throat and bosom, he gripped his roll of manuscript tightly lest somebody should steal it—­innocent that he was!

“Well, what is it, sir!” he exclaimed, thinking, when some one caught him by the arm, that his poetry had proved too great a temptation to some author’s honesty, and turning, he recognized Lousteau.

“I felt sure that you would find your way here at last,” said his friend.

The poet was standing in the doorway of a shop crowded with persons waiting for an audience with the sultan of the publishing trade.  Printers, paper-dealers, and designers were catechizing Dauriat’s assistants as to present or future business.

Lousteau drew Lucien into the shop.  “There! that is Finot who edits my paper,” he said; “he is talking with Felicien Vernou, who has abilities, but the little wretch is as dangerous as a hidden disease.”

“Well, old boy, there is a first night for you,” said Finot, coming up with Vernou.  “I have disposed of the box.”