Lucien squeezed Finot’s hand in transports of joy which no words can express.
“Don’t let anyone see that anything has passed between us,” said Finot in his ear, and he flung open a door of a room in the roof at the end of a long passage on the fifth floor.
A table covered with a green cloth was drawn up to a blazing fire, and seated in various chairs and lounges Lucien discovered Lousteau, Félicien Vernou, Hector Merlin, and two others unknown to him, all laughing or smoking. A real inkstand, full of ink this time, stood on the table among a great litter of papers; while a collection of pens, the worse for wear, but still serviceable for journalists, told the new contributor very plainly that the mighty enterprise was carried on in this apartment.
“Gentlemen,” said Finot, “the object of this gathering is the installation of our friend Lousteau in my place as editor of the newspaper which I am compelled to relinquish. But although my opinions will necessarily undergo a transformation when I accept the editorship of a review of which the politics are known to you, my convictions remain the same, and we shall be friends as before. I am quite at your service, and you likewise will be ready to do anything for me. Circumstances change; principles are fixed. Principles are the pivot on which the hands of the political barometer turn.”
There was an instant shout of laughter.
“Who put that into your mouth?” asked Lousteau.
“Blondet!” said Finot.
“Windy, showery, stormy, settled fair,” said Merlin; “we will all row in the same boat.”
“In short,” continued Finot, “not to muddle our wits with metaphors, anyone who has an article or two for me will always find Finot.—This gentleman,” turning to Lucien, “will be one of you.—I have arranged with him, Lousteau.”
Everyone congratulated Finot on his advance and new prospects.
“So there you are, mounted on our shoulders,” said a contributor whom Lucien did not know. “You will be the Janus of Journal—”
“So long as he isn’t the Janot,” put in Vernou.
“Are you going to allow us to make attacks on our bêtes noires?”
“Anyone you like.”
“Ah, yes!” said Lousteau; “but the paper must keep on its lines. M. Châtelet is very wroth; we shall not let him off for a week yet.”
“What has happened?” asked Lucien.
“He came here to ask for an explanation,” said Vernou. “The Imperial buck found old Giroudeau at home; and old Giroudeau told him, with all the coolness in the world, that Philippe Bridau wrote the article. Philippe asked the Baron to mention the time and the weapons, and there it ended. We are engaged at this moment in offering excuses to the Baron in tomorrow’s issue. Every phrase is a stab for him.”
“Keep your teeth in him and he will come round to me,” said Finot; “and it will look as if I were obliging him by appeasing you. He can say a word to the Ministry, and we can get something or other out of him—an assistant schoolmaster’s place, or a tobacconist’s license. It is a lucky thing for us that we flicked him on the raw. Does anybody here care to take a serious article on Nathan for my new paper?”
“Give it to Lucien,” said Lousteau. “Hector and Vernou will write articles in their papers at the same time.”
“Good day, gentlemen; we shall meet each other face to face at Barbin’s,” said Finot, laughing.
Lucien received some congratulations on his admission to the mighty army of journalists, and Lousteau explained that they could be sure of him. “Lucien wants you all to sup in a body at the house of the fair Coralie.”
“Coralie is going on at the Gymnase,” said Lucien.
“Very well, gentlemen; it is understood that we push Coralie, eh? Put a few lines about her new engagement in your papers, and say something about her talent. Credit the management of the Gymnase with tact and discernment; will it do to say intelligence?”
“Yes, say intelligence,” said Merlin; “Frédéric has something of Scribe’s.”
“Oh! Well, then, the manager of the Gymnase is the most perspicacious and farsighted 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 Étienne 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
