CHAPTER XVI.
Dr. Aubertin received one day a note from a publishing bookseller, to
inquire whether he still thought of giving the world his valuable work
on insects. The doctor was amazed. "My valuable work! Why, Rose, they
all refused it, and this person in particular recoiled from it as if my
insects could sting on paper."
The above led to a correspondence, in which the convert to insects
explained that the work must be published at the author's expense, the
publisher contenting himself with the profits. The author, thirsting for
the public, consented. Then the publisher wrote again to say that the
immortal treatise must be spiced; a little politics flung in: "Nothing
goes down, else." The author answered in some heat that he would not
dilute things everlasting with the fleeting topics of the day, nor
defile science with politics. On this his Mentor smoothed him down,
despising him secretly for not seeing that a book is a matter of trade
and nothing else. It ended in Aubertin going to Paris to hatch his
Phoenix. He had not been there a week, when a small deputation called on
him, and informed him he had been elected honorary member of a certain
scientific society.
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