IV

did not know better than themselves what they ought to think in order to please the readers of the Vie Francaise . I have already interviewed five hundred of these Chinese, Persians, Hindus, Chilians, Japanese, and others. They all reply the same, according to me. I have only to take my article on the last comer and copy it word for word. What has to be changed, though, is their appearance, their name, their title, their age, and their suite. Oh! on that point it does not do to make a mistake, for I should be snapped up sharp by the Figaro or the Gaulois . But on these matters the hall porters at the Hotel Bristol and the Hotel Continental will put me right in five minutes. We will smoke a cigar as we walk there. Five francs cab hire to charge to the paper. That is how one sets about it, my dear fellow, when one is practically inclined.”

“It must be worth something decent to be a reporter under these circumstances,” said Duroy.

The journalist replied mysteriously: “Yes, but nothing pays so well as paragraphs, on account of the veiled advertisements.”

They had got up and were passing down the boulevards towards the Madeleine. Saint-Potin suddenly observed to his companion: “You know if you have anything else to do, I shall not need you in any way.”

Duroy shook hands and left him. The notion of the article to be written that evening worried him, and he began to think. He stored his mind with ideas, reflections, opinions, and anecdotes as he walked along, and went as far as the end of the Avenue des Champs Élysées, where only a few strollers were to be seen, the heat having caused Paris to be evacuated.

Having dined at a wine shop near the Arc de Triomphe, he walked slowly home along the outer boulevards and sat down at his table to work. But as soon as he had the sheet of blank paper before his eyes, all the materials that he had accumulated fled from his mind as though his brain had evaporated. He tried to seize on fragments of his recollections and to