ke them, to court
patrons, cringing to them, or making them costly presents. When his
fellow-tradesmen could only pay in good bills of long date, he would
mention his notary as an accommodating man, and managed to get a second
profit out of the bargain, thanks to this arrangement, which had made it
a proverb among the traders of the Rue Saint-Denis: "Heaven preserve you
from Monsieur Guillaume's notary!" to signify a heavy discount.

The old merchant was to be seen standing on the threshold of his shop,
as if by a miracle, the instant the servant withdrew. Monsieur Guillaume
looked at the Rue Saint-Denis, at the neighboring shops, and at the
weather, like a man disembarking at Havre, and seeing France once more
after a long voyage. Having convinced himself that nothing had changed
while he was asleep, he presently perceived the stranger on guard, and
he, on his part, gazed at the patriarchal draper as Humboldt may have
scrutinized the first electric eel he saw in America. Monsieur Guillaume
wore loose black velvet breeches, pepper-and-salt stockings, and square
toed shoes with silver buckles. His coat, with square-cut fronts,
square-cut tails, and square-cut collar clothed his slightly bent figure
in greenish cloth, finished with white metal buttons, tawny from wear.
His gray hair was so accurately combed and flattened over his yellow
pate that it made it look like a furrowed field. His little green eyes,
that might have been pierced with a gimlet, flashed beneath arches
faintly tinged with red in the place of eyebrows. Anxieties had wrinkled
his forehead with as many horizontal lines as there were creases in his
coat. This colorless face expressed patience, commercial shrewdness,
and the sort of wily cupidity which is needful in business. At that
time these old families were less rare than they are now, in which the
characteristic habits and costume of their calling, surviving in
the midst of more recent civilization, were preserved as cherished
traditions, like the antediluvian remains found by Cuvier in the
quarries.

The head of the Guillaume family was a notable upholder of ancient
practices; he might be heard to regret the Provost of Merchants, and
never did he mention a decision of the Tribunal of Commerce without
calling it the _Sentence of the Consuls_. Up and dressed the first of
the household, in obedience, no doubt, to these old customs, he stood
sternly awaiting the appearance of his three assistants, read