It is said that a dialogue of Dumas the elder created a revolution in the French mode of paying romance literature. Dumas, who was reckoned by the line, one day introduced, they say, into his _feuilleton_ this thrilling passage: My son! My mother! Listen! Speak! Seest thou? What? This poniard! It is stained-- With blood! Whose? Thy father's. Ah!!! After that Dumas was paid by the letter. To say sooth, the same incident, with a different catastrophe, is related of Ponson Du Terrail, who, one day, in his "Resurrection de Rocambole," filled about a column with dialogue of this character: Who? I. You? Yes. He shuddered. Accordingly, as the story goes, the author being summoned before the editor of the "Petit Journal," was notified that if this monosyllabic chat went on, he would be paid by the word. "Very well," replied the obliging novelist, "I will change my style;" and next day, M. Millaud was astounded to find the _feuilleton_ introducing a pair of stammerers talking in this agreeable fashion: "Wou-wou-would you de-de-de-deceive me, you wr-wr-wretch?" said the old corsair in a tone of thunder. "I ne-ne-ne-never de-de-de-deceived an-an-an-anybody," exclaimed Baccarat, imitating the other's defect in pronunciation. "Wh-wh-wh-where is Ro-ro-rocam-bo-bole?" "You ne-ne-never will kn-know." "He will make all his characters stutter soon," said Millaud. "We had better pay him by the line." Of course this is a story _faite a plaisir_, as is also the one that as soon as Dumas made his first contract by the line, enchanted with the arrangement, he invented dear old Grimaud, who only opened his mouth to utter "yes," "no," "what?" "ah!" "bah!" and other monosyllables; but when the editor, who knew the cash price of "peuh" and "oh," declared he would only pay for lines half full, Grimaud was slaughtered the next morning. However, these yarns show that the French can satirize their jerky, staccato style of _feuilleton_, with each sentence staked off in a paragraph by itself, like some grimacing clown, who expects each particular joke or handspring to be observed individually, and to be greeted with separate applause. Across the channel we of course find the English journals going to the other extreme, in insular pride, and packing distinct subjects into the same paragraph.