"Rise, my wife! Monsieur is a man of science."

Madame Vital rose at her husband's gesture. Gazonal bowed to her.

"Shall I have the honor to cover your head?" said Vital, with joyful
obsequiousness.

"At the same price as mine," interposed Bixiou.

"Of course, of course; I ask no other fee than to be quoted by you,
messieurs-- Monsieur needs a picturesque hat, something in the style
of Monsieur Lousteau's," he continued, looking at Gazonal with the eye
of a master. "I will consider it."

"You give yourself a great deal of trouble," said Gazonal.

"Oh! for a few persons only; for those who know how to appreciate the
value of the pains I bestow upon them. Now, take the aristocracy
--there is but one man there who has truly comprehended the Hat; and
that is the Prince de Bethune. How is it that men do not consider, as
women do, that the hat is the first thing that strikes the eye? And
why have they never thought of changing the present system, which is,
let us say it frankly, ignoble? Yes, ignoble; and yet a Frenchman is,
of all nationalities, the one most persistent in this folly! I know
the difficulties of a change, messieurs. I don't speak of my own
writings on the matter, which, as I think, approach it philosophically,
but simply as a hatter. I have myself studied means to accentuate the
infamous head-covering to which France is now enslaved until I succeed
in overthrowing it."