gratis. Damn it! with a bowl of punch and a few cakes
we'll get it out of him; for, Popinot, no nonsense! I am to travel on
your commission without pay: your competitors shall pay; I'll diddle
it out of them. Let us understand each other clearly. As for me, this
triumph is an affair of honor. My reward is to be best man at your
wedding! I shall go to Italy, Germany, England! I shall carry with me
placards in all languages, paste them everywhere, in villages, on doors
of churches, all the best spots I can find in provincial towns! The oil
shall sparkle, scintillate, glisten on every head. Ha! your marriage
shall not be a sham; we'll make it a pageant, colors flying! You shall
have your Cesarine, or my name shall not be ILLUSTRIOUS,--that is what
Pere Finot calls me for having got off his gray hats. In selling your
oil I keep to my own sphere, the human head; hats and oil are well-known
preservatives of the public hair."

Popinot returned to his aunt's house, where he was to sleep, in such a
fever, caused by his visions of success, that the streets seemed to
him to be running oil. He slept little, dreamed that his hair was madly
growing, and saw two angels who unfolded, as they do in melodramas, a
scroll on which was written "Oil Cesarine." He woke, recollected the
dream, and vowed to give the oil of nuts that sacred name, accepting the
sleeping fancy as a celestial mandate.

* * * * *

Cesar and Popinot were at their work-shop in the Faubourg du Temple
the next morning long before the arrival of the nuts. While waiting for
Madame Madou's porters, Popinot triumphantly recounted his treaty of
alliance with Gaudissart.

"Have we indeed the illustrious Gaudissart? Then are we millionaires!"
cried the perfumer, extending his hand to his cashier with an air which
Louis XIV. must have worn when he received the Marechal de Villars on
his return from Denain.

"We have something besides," said the happy clerk, producing from his
pocket a bottle of a squat shape, like a pumpkin, and ribbed on the
sides. "I have found ten thousand bottles like that, all made ready to
hand, at four sous, and six months' credit."

"Anselme," said Birotteau, contemplating the wondrous shape of the
flask, "yesterday [here his tone of voice became solemn] in the
Tuileries,--yes, no later than yesterday,--you said to me, 'I will
succeed.' To-day I--I say to you, 'You will succeed.' Four sous! six
months! an unparallel