His aptitude and his memory were
prodigious; so that he was able to start on his peregrinations by the
15th of April, the date at which he usually opened the spring
campaign. Two large commercial houses, alarmed at the decline of
business, implored the ambitious Gaudissart not to desert the article
Paris, and seduced him, it was said, with large offers, to take their
commissions once more. The king of travellers was amenable to the
claims of his old friends, enforced as they were by the enormous
premiums offered to him.
* * * * *
"Listen, my little Jenny," he said in a hackney-coach to a pretty
florist.
All truly great men delight in allowing themselves to be tyrannized
over by a feeble being, and Gaudissart had found his tyrant in Jenny.
He was bringing her home at eleven o'clock from the Gymnase, whither
he had taken her, in full dress, to a proscenium box on the first
tier.
"On my return, Jenny, I shall refurnish your room in superior style.
That big Matilda, who pesters you with comparisons and her real India
shawls imported by the suite of the Russian ambassador, and her silver
plate and her Russian prince,--who to my mind is nothing but a humbug,
--won't have a word to say _then_. I consecrate to the adornment of your
room all the 'Children' I shall get in the provinces."
"Well, that's a pretty thing to say!" cried the florist. "Monster of a
man! Do you dare to talk to me of your children? Do you suppose I am
going to stand that sort of thing?"
"Oh, what a goose you are, my Jenny! That's only a figure of speech in
our business.
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