“No,” he said.

“Celestin has already sold fifty to passers-by, and sixty to regular customers.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Cesar.

The poor man, bewildered by the clash of bells which misery jangles in the ears of its victims, lived and moved in a dazed condition.  The night before, Popinot had waited more than an hour to see him, and went away after talking with Constance and Cesarine, who told him that Cesar was absorbed in his great enterprise.

“Ah, true! the lands about the Madeleine.”

Happily, Popinot—­who for a month had never left the Rue des Cinq-Diamants, sitting up all night, and working all Sunday at the manufactory—­had seen neither the Ragons, nor Pillerault, nor his uncle the judge.  He allowed himself but two hours’ sleep, poor lad! he had only two clerks, but at the rate things were now going, he would soon need four.  In business, opportunity is everything.  He who does not spring upon the back of success and clutch it by the mane, lets fortune escape.  Popinot felt that his suit would prosper if six months hence he could say to his uncle and aunt, “I am secure; my fortune is made,” and carry to Birotteau thirty or forty thousand francs as his share of the profits.  He was ignorant of Roguin’s flight, of the disasters and embarrassments which were closing down on Cesar, and he therefore could say nothing indiscreet to Madame Birotteau.

Popinot had promised Finot five hundred francs for every puff in a first-class newspaper, and already there were ten of them; three hundred francs for every second-rate paper, and there were ten of those,—­in all of them Cephalic Oil was mentioned three times a month!  Finot saw three thousand francs for himself out of these eight thousand—­his first stake on the vast green table of speculation!  He therefore sprang like a lion on his friends and acquaintances; he haunted the editorial rooms; he wormed himself to the very bedsides of editors in the morning, and prowled about the lobby of the theatres at night.  “Think of my oil, dear friend; I have no interest in it—­bit of good fellowship, you know!” “Gaudissart, jolly dog!” Such was the first and the last phrase of all his allocutions.  He begged for the bottom lines of the final columns of the newspapers, and inserted articles for which he asked no pay from the editors.  Wily as a supernumerary who wants to be an actor, wide-awake as an errand-boy who earns sixty francs a month, he wrote wheedling letters, flattered the self-love of editors-in-chief, and did them base services to get his articles inserted.  Money, dinners, platitudes, all served the purpose of his eager activity.  With tickets for the theatre, he bribed the printers who about midnight are finishing up the columns of a newspaper with little facts and ready-made items kept on hand.  At that hour Finot hovered around printing-presses, busy, apparently, with proofs to be corrected.  Keeping friends with everybody, he brought Cephalic Oil to a triumphant success over