"Then it cannot be very robust. The Turks, you see, have usurped a reputation for strength. Besides, there are no longer any Turks except at masked balls and in the Champs-Elysees where they sell dates. One of my friends knows the East and he assures me that all the natives of it were born in the Rue Coquenard." "That is smart," said Rodolphe. "You think so?" observed the critic, "I will put it in my article." "Here is my analysis of the piece, it is to the point," resumed Rodolphe. "Yes, but it is short." "By putting in dashes and developing your critical opinion it will fill some space." "I have scarcely time, my dear fellow, and then my critical opinion will not fill enough space either." "You can stick in an adjective at every third word." "Cannot you tail on to your analysis a little, or rather a long criticism of the piece, eh?" asked the critic. "Humph," said Rodolphe. "I have certainly some opinions upon tragedy, but I have printed them three times in 'The Beaver' and 'The Scarf of Iris.'" "No matter, how many lines do your opinions fill?" "Forty lines." "The deuce, you have strong opinions. Well, lend me your forty lines." "Good," thought Rodolphe, "if I turn out twenty francs' worth of copy for him he cannot refuse me five. I must warn you," said he to the critic, "that my opinions are not quite novel. They are rather worn at the elbows. Before printing them I yelled them in every cafe in Paris, there is not a waiter who does not know them by heart." "What does that matter to me? You surely do not know me. Is there anything new in the world except virtue?" "Here you are," said Rodolphe, as he finished. "Thunder and tempests, there is still nearly a column wanting. How is this chasm to be filled?" exclaimed the critic. "Since you are here supply me with some paradoxes." "I have not any about me," said Rodolphe, "though I can lend you some. Only they are not mine, I bought them for half a franc from one of my friends who was in distress. They have seen very little use as yet." "Very good," said the critic. "Ah!" said Rodolphe to himself, setting to write again. "I shall certainly ask him for ten francs, just now paradoxes are as dear as partridges." And he wrote some thirty lines containing nonsense about pianos, goldfish and Rhine wine, which was called toilet wine just as we speak of toilet vinegar. "It is very good," said the critic. "Now do me the favor to add that the place where one meets more honest folk than anywhere else is the galleys." "Why?" "To fill a couple of lines. Good, now it is finished," said the influential critic, summoning his servant to take the article to the printers. "And now," thought Rodolphe, "let us strike home." And he gravely proposed his request. "Ah! my dear fellow," said the critic, "I have not a sou in the place. Lolette ruins me in pommade, and just now she stripped me of my last copper to go to Versailles and see the Nereids and the brazen monsters spout forth the floods."