scribable suavity and grandeur of manner, to anxious Monsieur Werdet.

"Just so," said the eminent man. "You are doubtless possessed, sir, of considerable capital? You are probably aware that no man can hope to publish for ME who is not prepared to assert himself magnificently in the matter of cash? I sell high-high-very high. And, not to deceive you-for I am incapable of suppressing the truth-I am a man who requires to be dealt with on the principle of considerable advances. Proceed, sir-I am prepared to listen to you."

But Monsieur Werdet was too cautious to proceed without strengthening his position before starting. He entrenched himself instantly behind his pocket-book.

One by one, the notes of the Bank of France, which formed the poor publisher's small capital, were drawn out of their snug hiding-place. Monsieur Werdet produced six of them, representing five hundred francs each (or, as before mentioned, a hundred and twenty pounds sterling), arranged them neatly and impressively in a circle on the table, and then cast himself on the author's mercy in an agitated voice, and in these words:

"Sir! behold my capital. There lies my whole fortune. It is yours in exchange for any book you please to write for

me

At that point, to the horror and astonishment of Monsieur Werdet, his further progress was cut short by roars of laughter -formidable roars, as he himself expressly states-bursting from the lungs of the highly diverted Balzac.

"What astonishing simplicity?" exclaimed the great man. "Do you actually believe, sir, that I-De Balzac-can so entirely forget what is due to myself as to sell you any conceivable species of fiction which is the product of MY PEN, for the sum of three thousand franes? You have come here, Monsieur Werdet, to address an offer to me, without preparing yourself by previous reflection. If I felt so disposed,

I should have every right to consider your conduct as unbecoming in the highest degree. But I don't feel so disposed. On the contrary, I can even allow your honest ignorance, your innocent confidence, to excuse you in my estimation. Don't be alarmed, sir. Consider yourself excused to a certain extent."

Between disappointment, indignation, and astonishment, Monsieur Werdet was struck dumb. His friend, Monsieur Barbier, therefore spoke for him, urging every possible consideration; and finally proposing that Balzac, if he was determined not to write a new story for three thousand francs, should at least sell one edition of an old one for that sum. Monsieur Barbier's arguments were admirably put: they lasted a long time; and when they had come to an end, they received this reply:

"Gentlemen!" cried Balzac, pushing back his long hair from his heated temples, and taking a fresh dip of ink, "you have wasted an hour of MY TIME in talking of trifles. I rate the pecuniary loss thus occasioned to me at two hundred francs. My time is my capital. I must work. Gentlemen! leave me." Having expressed himself in these hospitable terms, the great man immediately resumed the process of composition.

Monsieur Werdet, naturally and properly indignant, immediately left the room. He was overtaken, after he had proceeded a little distance in the street, by his friend Barbier, who had remained behind to remonstrate.

"You have every reason to be offended," said Barbier. "His conduct is inexcusable. But pray don't suppose that your negotiation is broken off. I know him better than you do; and I tell you that you have nailed Balzac. He wants money, and before three days are over your head he will return your visit."

"If he does," replied Werdet, "I'll pitch him out of window."

"No, you won't," said Barbier.

"In the first place, it is

an extremely uncivil proceeding to pitch a man out of window; and, as a naturally polite gentleman, you are incapable of committing a breach of good manners. In the second

place, rude as he has been to you, Balzac is not the less a man of genius; and, as such, he is just the man of whom you, as a publisher, stand in need. Wait patiently; and in a day or two you will see him, or hear from him again." Barbier was right. Three days afterwards, the following satisfactory communication. received by Monsieur

Werdet :

was

"My brain, sir, was so prodigiously preoccupied by work uncongenial to my fancy, when you visited me the other day, that I was incapable of comprehending otherwise than imperfectly what it was that you wanted of me.

"To-day, my brain is not preoccupied. Do me the favour to come and see me at four o'clock.

"A thousand civilities.

"DE BALZAC."

Monsieur Werdet viewed this singular note in the light of a fresh impertinence. On consideration, however, he acknowledged it, and curtly added that important business would prevent his accepting the appointment proposed to him.

In two days more, friend Barbier came with a second invitation from the great man. But Monsieur Werdet steadily refused it. "Balzac has already been playing his game with me," he said. "Now it is my turn to play my game with Balzac. I mean to keep him waiting four days longer."

At the end of that time, Monsieur Werdet once more entered the sanctum sanctorum. On this second occasion, Balzac's graceful politeness was indescribable. He deplored the rarity of intelligent publishers. He declared his deep sense of the importance of an intelligent publisher's appearance on the literary horizon. He expressed himself as quite enchanted

to be now enabled to remark that appearance, to welcome it, and even to deal with it. Polite as he was by nature, Monsieur Werdet had no chance this time against Monsieur de Balzac. In the race of civility the publisher was now nowhere, and the author made all the running.

The interview, thus happily begun, terminated in a most agreeable transaction on both sides. Balzac cheerfully locked up the six bank notes in his strong-box. Werdet, as cheerfully, retired with a written agreement in his empty pocketbook, authorizing him to publish the second edition of "Le Médecin de Campagne"-hardly, it may be remarked in parenthesis, one of the best to select of the novels of Balzac.

II.

Once started in business as the happy proprietor and hopeful publisher of the second edition of "Le Médecin de Campagne," Monsieur Werdet was too wise a man not to avail himself of the only certain means of success in modern times. He puffed magnificently. Every newspaper in Paris was inundated with a deluge of advertisements, announcing the forthcoming work in terms of eulogy such as the wonderstruck reader had never met with before. The result, aided by Balzac's celebrity, was a phenomenon in the commercial history of French literature, at that time. Every copy of the second edition of "Le Médecin de Campagne" was sold in eight days.

This success established Monsieur Werdet's reputation. Young authors crowded to him with their manuscripts, all declaring piteously that they wrote in the style of Balzac. But Monsieur Werdet flew at higher game. He received the imitators politely, and even published for one or two of them; but the high business aspirations which now glowed within him were all concentrated on the great original. He had conceived the sublime idea of becoming Balzac's sole publisher; of buying up all his copyrights held by other houses, and of