"I did not think there could exist such--weak beings!" he said, with
difficulty keeping back the word _fools_.

"Ah, monsieur," said Cayron, "it is not everybody that has your
talents."

Birotteau might easily believe himself a superior being in the
presence of Monsieur Molineux; the answer of the umbrella-man made him
smile agreeably, and he bowed to him with a truly royal air as they
parted.

"I am close by the Markets," thought Cesar; "I'll attend to the matter
of the nuts."

* * * * *

After an hour's search, Birotteau, who was sent by the market-women to
the Rue de Lombards where nuts for sugarplums were to be found, heard
from his friend Matifat that the fruit in bulk was only to be had of a
certain Madame Angelique Madou, living in the Rue Perrin-Gasselin, the
sole establishment which kept the true filbert of Provence, and the
veritable white hazel-nut of the Alps.

The Rue Perrin-Gasselin is one of the narrow thoroughfares in a square
labyrinth enclosed by the quay, the Rue Saint-Denis, the Rue de la
Ferronnerie, and the Rue de la Monnaie; it is, as it were, one of the
entrails of the city. There swarm an infinite number of heterogeneous
and mixed articles of merchandise, evil-smelling and jaunty, herrings
and muslin, silks and honey, butter and gauze, and above all a number
of petty trades, of which Paris knows as little as a man knows of what