--when the client appears at the door, Marius gives him a glance which
appraises him: to Marius you are a _head_, more or less susceptible of
occupying his mind. To him there's no mankind; there are only heads."

"We let you hear Marius on all the notes of his scale," said Bixiou,
"and you know how to follow our lead."

As soon as Gazonal showed himself, the glance was given, and was
evidently favourable, for Marius exclaimed: "Regulus! yours this head!
Prepare it first with the little scissors."

"Excuse me," said Gazonal to the pupil, at a sign from Bixiou. "I
prefer to have my head dressed by Monsieur Marius himself."

Marius, much flattered by this demand, advanced, leaving the head on
which he was engaged.

"I am with you in a moment; I am just finishing. Pray have no
uneasiness, my pupil will prepare you; I alone will decide the cut."

Marius, a slim little man, his hair frizzed like that of Rubini, and
jet black, dressed also in black, with long white cuffs, and the frill
of his shirt adorned with a diamond, now saw Bixiou, to whom he bowed
as to a power the equal of his own.

"That is only an ordinary head," he said to Leon, pointing to the
person on whom he was operating,--"a grocer, or something of that
kind. But if we devoted ourselves to art only, we should lie in
Bicetre, mad!" and he turned back with an inimitable gesture to his
client, after saying to Regulus, "Prepare monsieur, he is evidently an