Again the Castanados' dainty parlor, more dainty than ever. No one
there was in evening dress, though with its privacy "modified as the
Castanados pleased," it had gathered a company of seven.
Chester, not yet come, would make an eighth. Madame was in her special
chair. And here, besides her husband, were both M. and Mme. De l'Isle,
Mme. Alexandre and Scipion Beloiseau. The seventh was M. Placide
Dubroca, perfumer; a man of fifty or so, his black hair and mustache
inclined to curl and his eyes spirited yet sympathetic. Just entered,
he was telling how consumed with regret his wife was, to be kept
away--by an old promise to an old friend to go with her to that
wonderful movie, "Les Trois Mousquetaires," when Chester came in and
almost at once a general debate on Mlle. Chapdelaine's manuscript was
in full coruscation.
"In the firs' place," one said--though the best place he could seize
was the seventeenth--"firs' place of all--competition! My frien's, we
cannot hope to nig-otiate with that North in the old manner which we
are proud, a few of us yet, to _con_-tinue in the rue Royale. Every
publisher----"
Mme. Castanado had a quotation that could not wait: "We got to be 'wise
like snake' an' innocent like pigeon'!'"
"Precizely! Every publisher approach' mus' know he's bidding agains'
every other! Maybe they are honess men, and _if_ so they'll be
rij-oice'!"
A non-listener was trying to squeeze in: "And sec'--and sec'--and
secon' thing--if not firs'--is guarantee! They mus' pay so much profit
in advance. Else it be better to publish without a publisher, and with
advertisement' front and back! Tiffany, Royal Baking-Powder, Ivory
Soap it Float'! Ten thousand dolla' the page that _Ladies' 'Ome
Journal_ get', and if we get even ten dolla' the page--I know a man
what make that way three hundred dolla'!"
"He make that net or gross?" some one asked.
"Ah! I think, not counting his time _sol_-iciting those
advertisement', he make it _nearly_ net."
Chester made show of breaking in and three speakers at once begged him
to proceed: "How much of a book," he asked Mme. Castanado, "will the
manuscript make? How long is it?"
She looked falteringly to her husband: "'Tis about a foot long, nine
inch' wide. Marcel, pazz that to monsieur."
The husband complied. Chester counted the lines of one of the pages.
Madame watched him anxiously.
"Tha'z too wide?" she inquired.
"It isn't long enough to make a book. To do that would take--oh--seven
times as much."
"Ah!" Madame's voice grew in sweetness as it rose: "So much the
better! So much the more room for those advertisement'!--and picture'!"
"And portrait of mademoiselle!" said Mme. Alexandre, and Mme. De l'Isle
smiled assent.
Yet a disappointed silence followed, presently broken by the perfumer:
"All the same, what is the matter to make it a pamphlet?"
Beloiseau objected: "No, then you compete aggains' those magazine'.
But if you permit one of those magazine' to buy it you get the
advantage of all the picture' in the whole magazine."
"Ah!" several demurred, "and let that magazine swallow whole all those
profit' of all those advertisement'!"
Chester spoke: "I have an idea--" But others had ideas and the floor
besides.