At once, if the lady is English, the dark, mysterious, portentous
Gaudissart advances like a romantic character out of one of Byron's
poems.

If she is a city madam, the oldest is put forward. He brings out a
hundred shawls in fifteen minutes; he turns her head with colors and
patterns; every shawl that he shows her is like a circle described by
a kite wheeling round a hapless rabbit, till at the end of half an
hour, when her head is swimming and she is utterly incapable of making
a decision for herself, the good lady, meeting with a flattering
response to all her ideas, refers the question to the assistant, who
promptly leaves her on the horns of a dilemma between two equally
irresistible shawls.

"This, madame, is very becoming--apple-green, the color of the season;
still, fashions change; while as for this other black-and-white shawl
(an opportunity not to be missed), you will never see the end of it,
and it will go with any dress."

This is the A B C of the trade.

"You would not believe how much eloquence is wanted in that beastly
line," the head Gaudissart of this particular establishment remarked
quite lately to two acquaintances (Duronceret and Bixiou) who had come
trusting in his judgment to buy a shawl. "Look here; you are artists
and discreet, I can tell you about the governor's tricks, and of all
the men I ever saw, he is the cleverest. I do not mean as a
manufacturer, there M. Fritot is first; but as a salesman. He
discovered the 'Selim shawl,' _an absolutely unsalable_ article, yet we