r people; none of them give more
than thirty per cent discount; we must manage forty on every hundred
remitted, and I'll answer for a hundred thousand bottles in six months.
I'll attack apothecaries, grocers, perfumers! Give 'em forty per cent,
and they'll bamboozle the public."

The three young fellows devoured their dinner like lions, and drank like
lords to the future success of Cephalic Oil.

"The oil is getting into my head," said Finot.

Gaudissart poured out a series of jokes and puns upon hats and heads,
and hair and hair-oil, etc. In the midst of Homeric laughter a knock
resounded, and was heard, in spite of an uproar of toasts and reciprocal
congratulations.

"It is my uncle!" cried Popinot. "He has actually come to see me."

"An uncle!" said Finot, "and we haven't got a glass!"

"The uncle of my friend Popinot is a judge," said Gaudissart to Finot,
"and he is not to be hoaxed; he saved my life. Ha! when one gets to the
pass where I was, under the scaffold--_Qou-ick_, and good-by to
your hair,"--imitating the fatal knife with voice and gesture. "One
recollects gratefully the virtuous magistrate who saved the gutter where
the champagne flows down. Recollect?--I'd recollect him dead-drunk! You
don't know what it is, Finot, unless you have stood in need of Monsieur
Popinot. Huzza! we ought to fire a salute--from six pounders, too!"

The virtuous magistrate was now asking for his nephew at the door.
Recognizing his voice, Anselme went down, candlestick in hand, to light
him up.

"I wish you good evening, gentlemen," said the judge.

The illustrious Gaudissart bowed profoundly. Finot examined the
magistrate with a tipsy eye, and thought him a bit of a blockhead.

"You have not much luxury here," said the judge, gravely, looking round
the room. "Well, my son, if we wish to be something great, we must begin
by being nothing."

"What profound wisdom!" said Gaudissart to Finot.

"Text for an article," said the journalist.

"Ah! you here, monsieur?" said the judge, recognizing the commercial
traveller; "and what are you doing now?"

"Monsieur, I am contributing to the best of my small ability to the
success of your dear nephew. We have just been studying a prospectus for
his oil; you see before you the author of that prospectus, which seems
to us the finest essay in the literature of wigs." The judge looked at
Finot. "Monsieur," said Gaudissart, "is Monsieur Andoche Finot, a young
man distinguished in l