Chester, not yet come, would make an eighth.  Madame was in her special chair.  And here, besides her husband, were both M. and Mme. De l’Isle, Mme. Alexandre and Scipion Beloiseau.  The seventh was M. Placide Dubroca, perfumer; a man of fifty or so, his black hair and mustache inclined to curl and his eyes spirited yet sympathetic.  Just entered, he was telling how consumed with regret his wife was, to be kept away—­by an old promise to an old friend to go with her to that wonderful movie, “Les Trois Mousquetaires,” when Chester came in and almost at once a general debate on Mlle. Chapdelaine’s manuscript was in full coruscation.

“In the firs’ place,” one said—­though the best place he could seize was the seventeenth—­“firs’ place of all—­competition!  My frien’s, we cannot hope to nig-otiate with that North in the old manner which we are proud, a few of us yet, to con-tinue in the rue Royale.  Every publisher——­”

Mme. Castanado had a quotation that could not wait:  “We got to be ’wise like snake’ an’ innocent like pigeon’!’”

“Precizely!  Every publisher approach’ mus’ know he’s bidding agains’ every other!  Maybe they are honess men, and if so they’ll be rij-oice’!”

A non-listener was trying to squeeze in:  “And sec’—­and sec’—­and secon’ thing—­if not firs’—­is guarantee!  They mus’ pay so much profit in advance.  Else it be better to publish without a publisher, and with advertisement’ front and back!  Tiffany, Royal Baking-Powder, Ivory Soap it Float’!  Ten thousand dolla’ the page that Ladies’ ’Ome Journal get’, and if we get even ten dolla’ the page—­I know a man what make that way three hundred dolla’!”

“He make that net or gross?” some one asked.

“Ah!  I think, not counting his time sol-iciting those advertisement’, he make it nearly net.”

Chester made show of breaking in and three speakers at once begged him to proceed:  “How much of a book,” he asked Mme. Castanado, “will the manuscript make?  How long is it?”

She looked falteringly to her husband:  “’Tis about a foot long, nine inch’ wide.  Marcel, pazz that to monsieur.”

The husband complied.  Chester counted the lines of one of the pages.  Madame watched him anxiously.

“Tha’z too wide?” she inquired.

“It isn’t long enough to make a book.  To do that would take—­oh—­seven times as much.”

“Ah!” Madame’s voice grew in sweetness as it rose:  “So much the better!  So much the more room for those advertisement’!—­and picture’!”

“And portrait of mademoiselle!” said Mme. Alexandre, and Mme. De l’Isle smiled assent.

Yet a disappointed silence followed, presently broken by the perfumer:  “All the same, what is the matter to make it a pamphlet?”

Beloiseau objected:  “No, then you compete aggains’ those magazine’.  But if you permit one of those magazine’ to buy it you get the advantage of all the picture’ in the whole magazine.”