you mean to salaam and bow and scrape in advertisements and
prospectuses, which will placard Cesar Birotteau at every corner, and
on all the boards, wherever they are building."

"Oh! you are not up to it all. I shall have a branch establishment,
under the name of Popinot, in some house near the Rue des Lombards,
where I shall put little Anselme. I shall pay my debt of gratitude to
Monsieur and Madame Ragon by setting up their nephew, who can make his
fortune. The poor Ragonines look to me half-starved of late."

"Bah! all those people want your money."

"But what people, my treasure? Is it your uncle Pillerault, who loves
us like the apple of his eye, and dines with us every Sunday? Is it
good old Ragon, our predecessor, who has forty upright years in
business to boast of, and with whom we play our game of boston? Is it
Roguin, a notary, a man fifty-seven years old, twenty-five of which he
has been in office? A notary of Paris! he would be the flower of the
lot, if honest folk were not all worth the same price. If necessary,
my associates will help me. Where is the plot, my white doe? Look
here, I must tell you your defect. On the word of an honest man it
lies on my heart. You are as suspicious as a cat. As soon as we had
two sous worth in the shop you thought the customers were all thieves.
I had to go down on my knees to you to let me make you rich. For a
Parisian girl you have no ambition! If it hadn't been for your
perpetual fears, no man could have been happier than I. If I had
listened to you I should never have invented the Paste of Sultans nor
the Carminative Balm. Our shop has given us a living, but these two
discoveries have made the hundred and sixty thousand francs which we
possess, net and clear! Without my genius, for I certainly have talent