run before it falls due."

"That is usury!" cried Margaritis.

"The devil! he's keen, the old fellow! I've made a mistake," thought
Gaudissart, "I must catch him with other chaff. I'll try humbug No. 1.
Not at all," he said aloud, "for you who--"

"Will you take a glass of wine?" asked Margaritis.

"With pleasure," replied Gaudissart.

"Wife, give us a bottle of the wine that is in the puncheons. You are
here at the very head of Vouvray," he continued, with a gesture of the
hand, "the vineyard of Margaritis."

The maid-servant brought glasses and a bottle of wine of the vintage of
1819. The good-man filled a glass with circumspection and offered it to
Gaudissart, who drank it up.

"Ah, you are joking, Monsieur!" exclaimed the commercial traveller.
"Surely this is Madeira, true Madeira?"

"So you think," said the fool. "The trouble with our Vouvray wine is
that it is neither a common wine, nor a wine that can be drunk with the
entremets. It is too generous, too strong. It is often sold in Paris
adulterated with brandy and called Madeira. The wine-merchants buy it
up, when our vintage has not been good enough for the Dutch and Belgian
markets, to mix it with wines grown in the neighborhood of Paris, and
call it Bordeaux. But what you are drinking just now, my good Monsieur,
is a wine for kings, the pure Head of Vouvray,--that's it's name. I
have two puncheons, only two puncheons of it left. People who like fine
wines, high-class wines, who furnish their table with qualities that
can't be bought in the regular trade,--and there are many persons in
Paris who have that vanity,--well, such people send direct to us for
this wine. Do you know any one who--?"

"Let us go on with what we were saying," interposed Gaudissart.

"We are going on," said the fool. "My wine is capital; you are capital,
capitalist, intellectual capital, capital wine,--all the same etymology,
don't you see? hein? Capital, 'caput,' head, Head of Vouvray, that's my
wine,--it's all one thing."

"So that you have realized your intellectual capital through your wines?
Ah, I see!" said Gaudissart.

"I have realized," said the lunatic. "Would you like to buy my
puncheons? you shall have them on good terms."

"No, I was merely speaking," said the illustrious Gaudissart, "of the
results of insurance and the employment of intellectual capital. I will
resume my argument."

The lunatic calmed down, and fell once more into position.

"I remarked, Mo