“Well, in point of fact,” said the old maid, whom the parting shot of the infernal barrister had touched on the ever-sensitive point of her authority, “I must look into that matter you speak of there; she is rather coquettish, that little woman.”

La Peyrade gained a second benefit out of that speech so adroitly flung out; he saw by Brigitte’s answer to it that the countess had not mentioned to her the visit he had paid her during the day.  This reticence might have a serious meaning.

Four days later, the printer, the stitcher, the paper glazier having fulfilled their offices, Thuillier had the inexpressible happiness of beginning on the boulevards a promenade, which he continued through the Passages, and even to the Palais-Royal, pausing before all the book-shops where he saw, shining in black letters on a yellow poster, the famous title:—­

TAXATION AND THE SLIDING-SCALE
by J. Thuillier,
Member of the Council-General of the Seine.

Having reached the point of persuading himself that the care he had bestowed upon the correction of proofs made the merit of the work his own, his paternal heart, like that of Maitre Corbeau, could not contain itself for joy.  We ought to add that he held in very low esteem those booksellers who did not announce the sale of the new work, destined to become, as he believed, a European event.  Without actually deciding the manner in which he would punish their indifference, he nevertheless made a list of these rebellious persons, and wished them as much evil as if they had offered him a personal affront.

The next day he spent a delightful morning in writing a certain number of letters, sending the publication to friends, and putting into paper covers some fifty copies, to which the sacramental phrase, “From the author,” imparted to his eyes an inestimable value.

But the third day of the sale brought a slight diminution of his happiness.  He had chosen for his editor a young man, doing business at a breakneck pace, who had lately established himself in the Passage des Panoramas, where he was paying a ruinous rent.  He was the nephew of Barbet the publisher, whom Brigitte had had as a tenant in the rue Saint-Dominique d’Enfer.  This Barbet junior was a youth who flinched at nothing; and when he was presented to Thuillier by his uncle, he pledged himself, provided he was not shackled in his advertising, to sell off the first edition and print a second within a week.

Now, Thuillier had spent about fifteen hundred francs himself on costs of publication, such, for instance, as copies sent in great profusion to the newspapers; but at the close of the third day seven copies only had been sold, and three of those on credit.  It might be believed that in revealing to the horror-stricken Thuillier this paltry result the young publisher would have lost at least something of his assurance.  On the contrary, this Guzman of the book-trade hastened to say:—­