“Fame means twelve thousand francs in reviews, and a thousand more for dinners, General,” said Dauriat.  “If M. Benjamin de Constant means to write a paper on this young poet, it will not be long before I make a bargain with him.”

At the title of General, and the distinguished name of Benjamin Constant, the bookseller’s shop took the proportions of Olympus for the provincial great man.

“Lousteau, I want a word with you,” said Finot; “but I shall see you again later, at the theatre.—­Dauriat, I will take your offer, but on conditions.  Let us step into your office.”

“Come in, my boy,” answered Dauriat, allowing Finot to pass before him.  Then, intimating to some ten persons still waiting for him that he was engaged, he likewise was about to disappear when Lucien impatiently stopped him.

“You are keeping my manuscript.  When shall I have an answer?”

“Oh, come back in three or four days, my little poet, and we will see.”

Lousteau hurried Lucien away; he had not time to take leave of Vernou and Blondet and Raoul Nathan, nor to salute General Foy nor Benjamin Constant, whose book on the Hundred Days was just about to appear.  Lucien scarcely caught a glimpse of fair hair, a refined oval-shaped face, keen eyes, and the pleasant-looking mouth belonging to the man who had played the part of a Potemkin to Mme. de Stael for twenty years, and now was at war with the Bourbons, as he had been at war with Napoleon.  He was destined to win his cause and to die stricken to earth by his victory.

“What a shop!” exclaimed Lucien, as he took his place in the cab beside Lousteau.

“To the Panorama-Dramatique; look sharp, and you shall have thirty sous,” Etienne Lousteau called to the cabman.—­“Dauriat is a rascal who sells books to the amount of fifteen or sixteen hundred thousand francs every year.  He is a kind of Minister of Literature,” Lousteau continued.  His self-conceit had been pleasantly tickled, and he was showing off before Lucien.  “Dauriat is just as grasping as Barbet, but it is on a wholesale scale.  Dauriat can be civil, and he is generous, but he has a great opinion of himself; as for his wit, it consists in a faculty for picking up all that he hears, and his shop is a capital place to frequent.  You meet all the best men at Dauriat’s.  A young fellow learns more there in an hour than by poring over books for half-a-score of years.  People talk about articles and concoct subjects; you make the acquaintance of great or influential people who may be useful to you.  You must know people if you mean to get on nowadays.—­It is all luck, you see.  And as for sitting by yourself in a corner alone with your intellect, it is the most dangerous thing of all.”

“But what insolence!” said Lucien.

“Pshaw! we all of us laugh at Dauriat,” said Etienne.  “If you are in need of him, he tramples upon you; if he has need of the Journal des Debats, Emile Blondet sets him spinning like a top.  Oh, if you take to literature, you will see a good many queer things.  Well, what was I telling you, eh?”