with very honest profits, twenty per cent., thirty at the most. He
based his calculations on quickly turning over his small capital,
never purchasing in the morning without knowing where to dispose of
his purchase at night. As a superb liar, moreover, he had no equal.

Pausing near the door, before the studies from the nude, painted at
the Boutin studio, he contemplated them in silence for a few moments,
his eyes glistening the while with the enjoyment of a connoisseur,
which his heavy eyelids tried to hide. Assuredly, he thought, there
was a great deal of talent and sentiment of life about that big crazy
fellow Claude, who wasted his time in painting huge stretches of
canvas which no one would buy. The girl's pretty legs, the admirably
painted woman's trunk, filled the dealer with delight. But there was
no sale for that kind of stuff, and he had already made his choice--a
tiny sketch, a nook of the country round Plassans, at once delicate
and violent--which he pretended not to notice. At last he drew near,
and said, in an off-hand way:

'What's this? Ah! yes, I know, one of the things you brought back with
you from the South. It's too crude. I still have the two I bought of
you.'

And he went on in mellow, long-winded phrases. 'You'll perhaps not
believe me, Monsieur Lantier, but that sort of thing doesn't sell at
all--not at all. I've a set of rooms full of them. I'm always afraid
of smashing something when I turn round. I can't go on like that,
honour bright; I shall have to go into liquidation, and I shall end my
days in the hospital. You know me, eh? my heart is bigger than my
pocket, and there's nothing I like better than to oblige young men of
talent like yourself. Oh, for the matter of that, you've got talent,