"What do you suppose is Marius's business?"

"Hair-dressing."

"He has obtained a monopoly of the sale of hair in bulk, as a certain
dealer in comestibles who is going to sell us a pate for three francs
has acquired a monopoly of the sale of truffles; he discounts the
paper of that business; he loans money on pawn to clients when
embarrassed; he gives annuities on lives; he gambles at the Bourse; he
is a stockholder in all the fashion papers; and he sells, under the
name of a certain chemist, an infamous drug which, for his share
alone, gives him an income of thirty thousand francs, and costs in
advertisements a hundred thousand yearly."

"Is it possible!" cried Gazonal.

"Remember this," said Bixiou, gravely. "In Paris there is no such
thing as a small business; all things swell to large proportions, down
to the sale of rags and matches. The lemonade-seller who, with his
napkin under his arm, meets you as you enter his shop, may be worth
his fifty thousand francs a year; the waiter in a restaurant is
eligible for the Chamber; the man you take for a beggar in the street
carries a hundred thousand francs worth of unset diamonds in his
waistcoat pocket, and didn't steal them either."

The three inseparables (for one day at any rate) now crossed the Place
de la Bourse in a way to intercept a man about forty years of age,
wearing the Legion of honor, who was coming from the boulevard by way
of the rue Neuve-Vivienne.