"
"Oh! Well, then, the manager of the Gymnase is the most perspicacious
and far-sighted of men of business," said Vernou.
"Look here! don't write your articles on Nathan until we have come to
an understanding; you shall hear why," said Etienne Lousteau. "We
ought to do something for our new comrade. Lucien here has two books
to bring out--a volume of sonnets and a novel. The power of the
paragraph should make him a great poet due in three months; and we
will make use of his sonnets (_Marguerites_ is the title) to run down
odes, ballads, and reveries, and all the Romantic poetry."
"It would be a droll thing if the sonnets were no good after all,"
said Vernou.--"What do you yourself think of your sonnets, Lucien?"
"Yes, what do you think of them?" asked one of the two whom Lucien did
not know.
"They are all right, gentlemen; I give you my word," said Lousteau.
"Very well, that will do for me," said Vernou; "I will heave your book
at the poets of the sacristy; I am tired of them."
"If Dauriat declines to take the _Marguerites_ this evening, we will
attack him by pitching into Nathan."
"But what will Nathan say?" cried Lucien.
His five colleagues burst out laughing.
"Oh! he will be delighted," said Vernou. "You will see how we manage
these things."
"So he is one of us?" said one of the two journalists.
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