"It has something the effect of a dinner-pill," said the worthy
provincial, while Gaillard and Bixiou were talking together in a low voice.
"I'll give you an answer to-night at Carabine's," said Gaillard aloud, reseating
himself at his desk without seeing or bowing to Gazonal.
"He is a rude fellow!" cried the Southerner as they left the room.
"His paper has twenty-two thousand subscribers," said Leon de Lora.
"He is one of the five great powers of the day, and he hasn't, in the
morning, the time to be polite. Now," continued Leon, speaking to Bixiou,
"if we are going to the Chamber to help him with his lawsuit let us take
the longest way round."
"Words said by great men are like silver-gilt spoons with the gilt
washed off; by dint of repetition they lose their brilliancy," said Bixiou.
"Where shall we go?"
"Here, close by, to our hatter?" replied Leon.
"Bravo!" cried Bixiou. "If we keep on in this way, we shall have an
amusing day of it."
"Gazonal," said Leon, "I shall make the man pose for you; but mind
that you keep a serious face, like the king on a five-franc piece, for you are
going to see a choice original, a man whose importance has turned his
head. In these days, my dear fellow, under our new political dispensation,
every human being tries to cover himself with glory, and most of them
cover themselves with ridicule; hence a lot of living caricatures quite new
to the world."
"If everybody gets glory, who can be famous?" said Gazonal.
"Fame! none but fools want that," replied Bixiou. "Your cousin wears
the cross, but I'm the better dressed of the two, and it is I whom people are
looking at."
After this remark, which may explain why orators and other great
statesmen no longer put the ribbon in their buttonholes when in Paris,
Leon showed Gazonal a sign, bearing, in golden letters, the illustrious
name of "Vital, successor to Finot, manufacturer of hats" (no longer
"hatter" as formerly), whose advertisements brought in more money to the
newspapers than those of any half-dozen vendors of pills or sugarplums,--
the author, moreover, of an essay on hats. |
