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"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, any one 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." Every one congratulated Finot on his advance and new prospects.
"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.
But as soon as she finds out that a bailiff is no laughing matter, or Finot gives her a suitable present or hopes of an engagement, she will give me the letters, and I will sell them to Finot. Finot will put the correspondence in his uncle's hands, and Giroudeau will bring Matifat to terms." These confidences sobered Lucien.
"That Finot, without a spark of talent in him, is to be editor of Dauriat's weekly paper, with a salary of six hundred francs per month, and owner of a sixth share, for which he has not paid one penny. And I, my dear fellow, am now editor of our little paper. Everything went off as I expected; Florine managed superbly, she could give points to Tallyrand himself."
Rastignac, Blondet, Lousteau, Vernou, Finot, and Massol took care not to enlighten him. Rastignac, who wanted to return to power, made common cause with Nucingen and du Tillet. The others felt a satisfaction in the catastrophe of an equal who had attempted to make himself their master. None of them, however, would have said a word to Florine; on the contrary, they praised Raoul to her.
Our dear Lucien has revived the Metamorphoses of Ovid. Charles X.! My dear boy," he went on, holding Lucien by his coat button, "a journalist who apes the fine gentleman deserves rough music. In their place," said the merciless jester, as he pointed to Finot and Vernou, "I should take you up in my society paper; you would bring in a hundred francs for ten columns of fun."
In short, Finot once satisfied, I am allowed to write for and against various commercial articles, and I traffic in tribute paid in kind by various tradesmen. A facetious notice of a Carminative Toilet Lotion, Pate des Sultanes, Cephalic Oil, or Brazilian Mixture brings me in twenty or thirty francs.
In Paris, Finot fired at Macassar Oil that delightful joke which made people so merry at the Funambules, when Pierrot, taking an old hair-broom, anointed it with Macassar Oil, and the broom incontinently became a mop. This ironical scene excited universal laughter.
We are engaged at this moment in offering excuses to the Baron in to-morrow'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.
"I will write it," said Hector Merlin. "It is my own point of view." "Your party will complain that you are compromising them," said Finot. "Felicien, you must undertake it; Dauriat will bring it out, and we will keep the secret." "How much shall I get?" "Six hundred francs. Sign it 'Le Comte C, three stars." "It's a bargain," said Felicien Vernou.
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