He had been accustomed to furnish a large proportion of the home supply of olives and almonds for which there was a demand in Paris, from the produce of the estates of his wife and father-in-law; and now he had applications, day after day, for fruits which he might have sold at a high price, while scarcely a customer came for wine. He had already invested the little floating capital he could spare from the restoration of his vineyards in fruits from Italy and the Levant, which his brother purchased for him as they came up the great canal and the Garonne, on their way to Bordeaux. He now began to wish that he could exchange a part of his large stock of wine for fruits. He knew that wines would rise enormously in price, as soon as the demand should revive; but fruits had already risen enormously, and he wished to turn some of his capital into money by their means. It was easy to do this by extending his transactions with Steele, who purchased fruit in large quantities at Bordeaux to send to England. The demand for fruit in London being at present insignificant in comparison with that for claret, and the direct reverse being the case at Paris, it was Steele’s interest to transmit more wine and less fruit, and Charles’s to take fruit in exchange for his wine. It was therefore settled that, in addition to their standing bargain for first-rate wine, Steele should have a large choice of second-rate claret, in payment for chestnuts from Spain, oranges and citrons from the Madeiras, olives from the Levant, and almonds from Italy. The terms of exchange were the only difficulty.