e who had
eyes to see the symptoms of prosperity. The floors were littered with
packages and wrapping-paper. The storerooms held small casks of various
oils, obtained for Popinot on commission by the devoted Gaudissart. The
ledgers, the accounts, and the desks were moved into the rooms above the
shop and the back-shop. An old cook did all the household work for the
master and his three clerks. Popinot, penned up in a corner of the shop
closed in with glass, might be seen in a serge apron and long sleeves
of green linen, with a pen behind his ear, in the midst of a mass of
papers, where in fact Birotteau now found him, as he was overhauling his
letters full of proposals and checks and orders. At the words "Hey, my
boy!" uttered by his old master, Popinot raised his head, locked up his
cubby-hole, and came forward with a joyous air and the end of his nose a
little red. There was no fire in the shop, and the door was always open.

"I feared you were never coming," he said respectfully.

The clerks crowded round to look at the distinguished perfumer, the
decorated deputy-mayor, the partner of their own master. Birotteau,
so pitifully small at the Kellers, felt a craving to imitate
those magnates; he stroked his chin, rose on his heels with native
self-complacency, and talked his usual platitudes.

"Hey, my lad! we get up early, don't we?" he remarked.

"No, for we don't always go to bed," said Popinot. "We must clutch
success."

"What did I tell you? My oil will make your fortune!"

"Yes, monsieur. But the means employed to sell it count for something. I
have set your diamond well."

"How do we stand?" said Cesar. "How far have you got? What are the
profits?"

"Profits! at the end of two months! How can you expect it? Friend
Gaudissart has only been on the road for twenty-five days; he took a
post-chaise without saying a word to me. Oh, he is devoted! We owe
a great deal to my uncle. The newspapers alone (here he whispered in
Birotteau's ear) will cost us twelve thousand francs."

"Newspapers!" exclaimed the deputy-mayor.

"Haven't you read them?"

"No."

"Then you know nothing," said Popinot. "Twenty thousand francs worth of
placards, gilt frames, copies of the prospectus. One hundred thousand
bottles bought. Ah, it is all paying through the nose at this moment! We
are manufacturing on a grand scale. If you had set foot in the faubourg,
where I often work all night, you would have seen a little nut-cracker