aste I like Hero and Leander quite as much. The Virgin is a religious
subject, suitable for a chapel; but Hero and Leander, ah! I shall buy
it, for that flask of oil gave me an idea--"

"Papa, I don't know what you are talking about."

"Virginie! a hackney-coach!" cried Cesar, in stentorian tones, as soon
as he had trimmed his beard and seen little Popinot appear, who was
dragging his foot timidly because Cesarine was there.

The lover had never yet perceived that his infirmity no longer existed
in the eyes of his mistress. Delicious sign of love!--which they on whom
chance has inflicted a bodily imperfection can alone obtain.

"Monsieur," he said, "the press will be ready to work to-morrow."

"Why, what's the matter, Popinot?" asked Cesar, as he saw Anselme blush.

"Monsieur, it is the joy of having found a shop, a back-shop, kitchen,
chambers above them, and store-rooms,--all for twelve hundred francs a
year, in the Rue des Cinq-Diamants."

"We must take a lease of eighteen years," said Birotteau. "But let us
start for Monsieur Vauquelin's. We can talk as we go."

Cesar and Popinot got into the hackney-coach before the eyes of the
astonished clerks, who did not know what to make of these gorgeous
toilets and the abnormal coach, ignorant as they were of the great
project revolving in the mind of the master of "The Queen of Roses."

"We are going to hear the truth about nuts," said Cesar, half to
himself.

"Nuts?" said Popinot.

"There you have my secret," said the perfumer. "I've let loose the word
_nuts_,--all is there. The oil of nuts is the only oil that has any real
effect upon hair. No perfumer has ever dreamed of it. I saw an engraving
of Hero and Leander, and I said to myself, If the ancients used all that
oil on their heads they had some reason for it; for the ancients are the
ancients, in spite of all the moderns may say; I stand by Boileau about
the ancients. I took my departure from that point and got the oil of
nuts, thanks to your relation, little Bianchon the medical student; he
told me that at school his comrades used nut oil to promote the growth
of their whiskers and mustachios. All we need is the approval of
Monsieur Vauquelin; enlightened by his science, we shall mislead the
public. I was in the markets just now, talking to a seller of nuts, so
as to get hold of the raw material, and now I am about to meet one of
the greatest scientific men in France, to get at the quintessence of
that co