“As you please, my dear master; but decide soon, for nothing gets mouldy so fast as a book; write hot, serve hot, and buy hot,--that’s the rule for authors, publishers, and public; all is bosh outside of it, and no good to touch.” When la Peyrade was consulted, he did not think in his heart that the remedy was heroic, but he had now come to feel the bitterest animosity against Thuillier, so that he was well pleased to see this new tax levied on his self-important inexperience and pompous silliness. As for Thuillier, the mania for posing as a publicist and getting himself talked about so possessed him that although he moaned over this fresh bleeding of his purse, he had decided on the sacrifice before he even spoke to la Peyrade. The reserved and conditional approval of the latter was, therefore, more than enough to settle his determination, and the same evening he returned to Barbet junior and asked for the list of guests whom he ought to invite. Barbet gaily produced his little catalogue. Instead of the ten guests originally mentioned, there proved to be fifteen, not counting himself or la Peyrade, whom Thuillier wanted to second him in this encounter with a set of men among whom he himself felt he should be a little out of place. Casting his eyes over the list, he exclaimed, vehemently:-- “Heavens! my dear fellow, here are names of papers nobody ever heard of. Where’s the ‘Moralisateur,’ the ‘Lanterne de Diogene,’ the ‘Pelican,’ the ‘Echo de la Bievre’?” “You’d better be careful how you scorn the ‘Echo de la Bievre,’” said Barbet; “why, that’s the paper of the 12th arrondissement, from which you expect to be elected; its patrons are those big tanners of the Mouffetard quarter!” “Well, let that go--but the ‘Pelican’?” “The ‘Pelican’? that’s a paper you’ll find in every dentist’s waiting-room; dentists are the first _puffists_ in the world! How many teeth do you suppose are daily pulled in Paris?” “Come, come, nonsense,” said Thuillier, who proceeded to mark out certain names, reducing the whole number present to fourteen. “If one falls off we shall be thirteen,” remarked Barbet. “Pooh!” said Thuillier, the free-thinker, “do you suppose I give in to that superstition?” The list being finally closed and settled at fourteen, Thuillier seated himself at the publisher’s desk and wrote the invitations, naming, in view of the urgency of the purpose, the next day but one for the meeting, Barbet having assured him that no journalist would object to the shortness of the invitation. The meeting was appointed at Vefour’s, the restaurant par excellence of the bourgeoisie and all provincials.