Part 5 (2/2)
”Credit your account?” inquired the purchaser.
”Old humbug! you would settle with me in eighteen months' time, with bills at a twelvemonth.”
”No. Settled at once,” returned Vidal or Porchon.
”Bills at nine months?” asked the publisher or author, who evidently was selling his book.
”No, my dear fellow, twelve months,” returned one of the firm of booksellers' agents.
There was a pause.
”You are simply cutting my throat!” said the visitor.
”But in a year's time shall we have placed a hundred copies of _Leonide_?” said the other voice. ”If books went off as fast as the publishers would like, we should be millionaires, my good sir; but they don't, they go as the public pleases. There is some one now bringing out an edition of Scott's novels at eighteen sous per volume, three livres twelve sous per copy, and you want me to give you more for your stale remainders? No. If you mean me to push this novel of yours, you must make it worth my while.--Vidal!”
A stout man, with a pen behind his ear, came down from his desk.
”How many copies of Ducange did you place last journey?” asked Porchon of his partner.
”Two hundred of _Le Pet.i.t Vieillard de Calais_, but to sell them I was obliged to cry down two books which pay in less commission, and uncommonly fine 'nightingales' they are now.”
(A ”nightingale,” as Lucien afterwards learned, is a bookseller's name for books that linger on hand, perched out of sight in the loneliest nooks in the shop.)
”And besides,” added Vidal, ”Picard is bringing out some novels, as you know. We have been promised twenty per cent on the published price to make the thing a success.”
”Very well, at twelve months,” the publisher answered in a piteous voice, thunderstruck by Vidal's confidential remark.
”Is it an offer?” Porchon inquired curtly.
”Yes.” The stranger went out. After he had gone, Lucien heard Porchon say to Vidal:
”We have three hundred copies on order now. We will keep him waiting for his settlement, sell the _Leonides_ for five francs net, settlement in six months, and----”
”And that will be fifteen hundred francs into our pockets,” said Vidal.
”Oh, I saw quite well that he was in a fix. He is giving Ducange four thousand francs for two thousand copies.”
Lucien cut Vidal short by appearing in the entrance of the den.
”I have the honor of wis.h.i.+ng you a good day, gentlemen,” he said, addressing both partners. The booksellers nodded slightly.
”I have a French historical romance after the style of Scott. It is called _The Archer of Charles IX._; I propose to offer it to you----”
Porchon glanced at Lucien with l.u.s.treless eyes, and laid his pen down on the desk. Vidal stared rudely at the author.
”We are not publis.h.i.+ng booksellers, sir; we are booksellers' agents,”
he said. ”When we bring out a book ourselves, we only deal in well-known names; and we only take serious literature besides--history and epitomes.”
”But my book is very serious. It is an attempt to set the struggle between Catholics and Calvinists in its true light; the Catholics were supporters of absolute monarchy, and the Protestants for a republic.”
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