“I am bursting!” cried Pelisson, when they were in the street. “Toto, take my arm; Gaillard, give me yours. Cab! No, I must work my electricity off by walking. We will dine at the Café de la Paix. I met Wolf an hour ago; he told me he would be there.” “Stop,” said Gaillard. “I do not want to go to the Café de la Paix.” “Why, Wolf told me you had a rendezvous with him.” “It was a _rendezvous de convenance_,” said the poet. “He is bothering me. Never knew a man to bother so over a paltry hundred francs.” “I will pay it,” said Pelisson. “Come along. What’s that you say: Old De Nani will be there—the Marquis? He’ll do; I am in want of a cheap Marquis. Really, the gods are working. Hearken to Paris—it hums; I will make it roar. The Ministry is down. Have you not heard? Oafs! where have you been? Well, then, the time is coming; it only wants the men to bring it.” “The time has come for what?” asked Gaillard. “For a general rooting out, all the rotten sticks into the fire. What will be the end of it?—who knows? The restoration of the Bourbons, I believe. The republic is a rotten hoarding, papered with Panama scrip. What’s behind the hoarding? ah, ah, my children! wait and see. I am going to bring out a paper; everything is ready down to the printer’s ink. I want from you a hundred thousand francs, Toto. I want your brains, Gaillard. Struve we will pull into it also. I have four other men; all the talent in Paris will be with me. It is to be a dull paper full of ideas. It will lick the boots of the bourgeoisie, and wink behind it at the throne. It will slaver, and stink, and shuffle along, but it will build barricades in the world of thought. Gaillard, can you write an ode to a yard-stick?” “I can write an ode to anything beautiful.” “What is more beautiful than a bourgeois? He is the emblem of commerce.” “Looking at him in that light, he has his dim sort of beauty; besides, I would do anything to vex De Brie. He pays one for one’s work as if one were a butcher selling legs of mutton. He reduces literature to the level of a trade. He would be mad if he thought I were on the staff of another journal.” “He’ll be madder when he sees my paper break out like the smallpox; but you must be dull.” “I would endeavor even to be dull,” said Gaillard, “to vex De Brie.” “But see here,” said Toto. “What is the use of another paper? There are hundreds of papers.” “There is no paper like mine,” said Pelisson. “Wait till you see it! it will begin with a grunt and end in a yell. _Ma foi!_ yes. There are a hundred dull papers pretending to be clever, but there is no clever paper pretending to be dull. I am going to be respectable, and wear a scorpion’s tail. I am going to give more business news than any other paper. M. Prudhomme will read me after dinner; and I will tickle him under the ribs, and then some day I will bite him behind, and make him jump from his easy-chair and pull things down. You will hear Paris crack. Here we are!”