At present, morning and evening, when the thousand employees went in and came out, they formed such a long procession in the Place Gaillon that people stopped to look at them as they would at a passing regiment. For ten minutes they blocked up all the streets; and the shopkeepers at their doors thought bitterly of their single assistant, whom they hardly knew how to find food for. The last balance-sheet of the big shop, the forty millions turned over, had also caused a revolution in the neighbourhood. The figure passed from house to house amid cries of surprise and anger. Forty millions! Think of that! No doubt the net profit did not exceed more than four per cent., with their heavy general expenses, and system of low prices; but sixteen hundred thousand francs was a jolly sum, one could be satisfied with four per cent., when one operated on such a scale as that. It was said that Mouret's starting capital of five hundred thousand francs, augmented each year by the total profits, a capital which must at that moment have amounted to four millions, had thus passed ten times over the counters in the form of goods. Robineau, when he made this calculation before Denise, after dinner, was overcome for a moment, his eyes fixed on his empty plate. She was right, it was this incessant renewal of the capital that constituted the invincible force of the new system of business. Bourras alone denied the facts, refusing to understand, superb and stupid as a mile-stone. A pack of thieves and nothing more! A lying set! Cheap-jacks who would be picked up out of the gutter one fine morning!