"I take that compliment to myself, _cher confrere_; for though the expenses of starting the Sens Commun, and the caution money lodged, were found by a friend of mine, that was as a loan, which I have long since repaid, and the property in the journal is now exclusively mine. I have to thank you not only for your own brilliant contributions, but for those of the colleagues you secured. Monsieur Savarin's piquant criticisms were most valuable to us at starting. I regret to have lost his aid. But as he has set up a new journal of his own, even he has not wit enough to spare for another. _A propos_ of our contributors, I shall ask you to present me to the fair author of The Artist's Daughter. I am of too prosaic a nature to appreciate justly the merits of a _roman_; but I have heard warm praise of this story from the young--they are the best judges of that kind of literature; and I can at least understand the worth of a contributor who trebled the sale of our journal. It is a misfortune to us, indeed, that her work is completed, but I trust that the sum sent to her through our publisher suffices to tempt her to favour us with another roman in series." "Mademoiselle Cicogna," said Rameau, with a somewhat sharper intonation of his sharp voice, "has accepted for the republication of her _roman_ in a separate form terms which attest the worth of her genius, and has had offers from other journals for a serial tale of even higher amount than the sum so generously sent to her through your publisher." "Has she accepted them, Monsieur Rameau? If so, _tant pis pour vous_. Pardon me, I mean that your salary suffers in proportion as the Sens Commun declines in sale." "She has not accepted them. I advised her not to do so until she could compare them with those offered by the proprietor of the Sens Commun." "And your advice guides her? Ah, _cher confrere_, you are a happy man!-- you have influence over this young aspirant to the fame of a De Stael or a Georges Sand." "I flatter myself that I have some," answered Rameau, smiling loftily as he helped himself to another tumbler of. Volnay wine--excellent, but rather heady. "So much the better. I leave you free to arrange terms with Mademoiselle Cicogna, higher than she can obtain elsewhere, and kindly contrive my own personal introduction to her--you have breakfasted already?--permit me to offer you a cigar--excuse me if I do not bear you company; I seldom smoke--never of a morning. Now to business, and the state of France. Take that easy-chair, seat yourself comfortably. So! Listen! If ever Mephistopheles revisit the earth, how he will laugh at Universal Suffrage and Vote by Ballot in an old country like France, as things to be admired by educated men, and adopted by friends of genuine freedom!" "I don't understand you," said Rameau. "In this respect at least, let me hope that I can furnish you with understanding.