ished for it and that your occupations
did not leave you time to search for it; I have been your commercial
traveller, that is all. Accept therefore, not a paltry engraving, but
efforts, anxieties, despatches to and fro, which are the evidence of my
complete devotion. Would that you had wished for something growing on
the sides of precipices, that I might have sought it and said to you,
'Here it is!' Do not refuse my gift. We have so much reason to be
forgotten; allow me therefore to place myself, my wife, my daughter, and
the son-in-law I expect to have, beneath your eyes. You must say when
you look at the Virgin, 'There are some people in the world who are
thinking of me.'"

"I accept," said Vauquelin.

Popinot and Birotteau wiped their eyes, so affected were they by the
kindly tone in which the academician uttered the words.

"Will you crown your goodness?" said the perfumer.

"What's that?" exclaimed Vauquelin.

"I assemble my friends"--he rose from his heels, taking, nevertheless,
a modest air--"as much to celebrate the emancipation of our territory as
to commemorate my promotion to the order of the Legion of honor--"

"Ah!" exclaimed Vauquelin, surprised.

"Possibly I showed myself worthy of that signal and royal favor, by my
services on the Bench of commerce, and by fighting for the Bourbons upon
the steps of Saint-Roch, on the 13th Vendemiaire, where I was wounded
by Napoleon. My wife gives a ball, three weeks from Sunday; pray come to
it, monsieur. Do us the honor to dine with us on that day. Your presence
would double the happiness with which I receive my cross. I will write
you beforehand."

"Well, yes," said Vauquelin.

"My heart swells with joy!" cried the perfumer, when he got into the
street. "He comes to my house! I am afraid I've forgotten what he said
about hair: do you remember it, Popinot!"

"Yes, monsieur; and twenty years hence I shall remember it still."

"What a great man! what a glance, what penetration!" said Birotteau.
"Ah! he made no bones about it; he guessed our thoughts at the first
word; he has given us the means of annihilating Macassar oil. Yes!
nothing can make the hair grow; Macassar, you lie! Popinot, our fortune
is made. We'll go to the manufactory to-morrow morning at seven o'clock;
the nuts will be there, and we will press out some oil. It is all very
well for him to say that any oil is good; if the public knew that, we
should be lost. If we didn't put some scent and