“I wish you good evening, gentlemen,” said the judge.
The illustrious Gaudissart bowed profoundly. Finot examined the magistrate with a tipsy eye, and thought him a bit of a blockhead.
“You have not much luxury here,” said the judge, gravely, looking round the room. “Well, my son, if we wish to be something great, we must begin by being nothing.”
“What profound wisdom!” said Gaudissart to Finot.
“Text for an article,” said the journalist.
“Ah! you here, monsieur?” said the judge, recognizing the commercial traveller; “and what are you doing now?”
“Monsieur, I am contributing to the best of my small ability to the success of your dear nephew. We have just been studying a prospectus for his oil; you see before you the author of that prospectus, which seems to us the finest essay in the literature of wigs.” The judge looked at Finot. “Monsieur,” said Gaudissart, “is Monsieur Andoche Finot, a young man distinguished in literature, who does high-class politics and the little theatres in the government newspapers,—I may say a statesman on the high-road to becoming an author.”
Finot pulled Gaudissart by the coat-tails.
“Well, well, my sons,” said the judge, to whom these words explained the aspect of the table, where there stilled remained the tokens of a very excusable feast. “Anselme,” said the old gentleman to his nephew, “dress yourself, and come with me to Monsieur Birotteau’s, where I have a visit to pay. You shall sign the deed of partnership, which I have carefully examined. As you mean to have the manufactory for your oil on the grounds in the Faubourg du Temple, I think you had better take a formal lease of them. Monsieur Birotteau might have others in partnership with him, and it is better to settle everything legally at once; then there can be no discussion. These walls seem to me very damp, my dear boy; take up the straw matting near your bed.”
“Permit me, monsieur,” said Gaudissart, with an ingratiating air, “to explain to you that we have just pasted up the paper ourselves, and that’s the—reason why—the walls—are not—dry.”