“Leave the room!” said Thuillier; “you have nothing more to do here.”

“Hey, my boy!” said Cerizet, turning to la Peyrade, “so you’ve twisted the old bourgeois round your finger again?  Well, well, no matter!  I think you are making a mistake not to go and see du Portail, and I shall tell him—­”

“Leave this house!” cried Thuillier, in a threatening tone.

“Please remember, my dear monsieur, that I never asked you to employ me; I was well enough off before you sent for me, and I shall be after.  But I’ll give you a piece of advice:  don’t pay the twenty-five thousand francs out of your own pocket, for that’s hanging to your nose.”

So saying, Cerizet put his thirty-three thousand francs in banknotes back into his wallet, took his hat from the table, carefully smoothed the nap with his forearm and departed.

Thuillier had been led by Cerizet into what proved to be a most disastrous campaign.  Now become the humble servant of la Peyrade, he was forced to accept his conditions, which were as follows:  five hundred francs a month for la Peyrade’s services in general; his editorship of the paper to be paid at the rate of fifty francs a column,—­which was simply enormous, considering the small size of the sheet; a binding pledge to continue the publication of the paper for six months, under pain of the forfeiture of fifteen thousand francs; an absolute omnipotence in the duties of editor-in-chief,—­that is to say, the sovereign right of inserting, controlling, and rejecting all articles without being called to explain the reasons of his actions, —­such were the stipulations of a treaty in duplicate made openly, “in good faith,” between the contracting parties. But, in virtue of another and secret agreement, Thuillier gave security for the payment of the twenty-five thousand francs for which la Peyrade was accountable to Madame Lambert, binding the said Sieur de la Peyrade, in case the payment were required before his marriage with Celeste Colleville could take place, to acknowledge the receipt of said sum advanced upon the dowry.

Matters being thus arranged and accepted by the candidate, who saw no chance of election if he lost la Peyrade, Thuillier was seized with a happy thought.  He went to the Cirque-Olympique, where he remembered to have seen in the ticket-office a former employee in his office at the ministry of Finance,—­a man named Fleury; to whom he proposed the post of manager.  Fleury, being an old soldier, a good shot, and a skilful fencer, would certainly make himself an object of respect in a newspaper office.  The working-staff of the paper being thus reconstituted, with the exception of a few co-editors or reporters to be added later, but whom la Peyrade, thanks to the facility of his pen, was able for the present to do without, the first number of the new paper was launched upon the world.

Thuillier now recommenced the explorations about Paris which we saw him make on the publication of his pamphlet.  Entering all reading-rooms and cafes, he asked for the “Echo de la Bievre,” and when informed, alas, very frequently, that the paper was unknown in this or that establishment, “It is incredible!” he would exclaim, “that a house which respects itself does not take such a widely known paper.”