“Of course,” resumed Mouret, “we shall be obliged to enlarge our premises before another eighteen months. I'm seriously thinking about the matter. Last night Madame Desforges promised to introduce me to some one. In short, we'll talk it over when the idea is ripe.” And having finished signing his drafts, he got up, and tapped his lieutenant on the shoulder in a friendly manner, but the latter could not get over his astonishment. The fright felt by the prudent people around him amused Mouret. In one of his fits of brusque frankness with which he sometimes overwhelmed his familiars, he declared he was at heart a bigger Jew than all the Jews in the world; he took after his father, whom he resembled physically and morally, a fellow who knew the value of money; and, if his mother had given him that particle of nervous fantasy, why it was, perhaps, the principal element of his luck, for he felt the invincible force of his daring reckless grace. “You know very well that we'll stand by you to the last,” Bourdoncle finished by saying. Before going down into the various departments to give their usual look round, they settled certain other details. They examined the specimen of a little book of account forms, which Mouret had just invented for use at the counters. Having remarked that the old-fashioned goods, the dead stock, went off all the more rapidly when the commission given to the employees was high, he had based on this observation a new system. In future he intended to interest his people in the sale of all goods, giving them a commission on the smallest piece of stuff, the slightest article sold: a system which had caused a revolution in the drapery trade, creating between the salespeople a struggle for existence of which the proprietor reaped the benefit. This struggle formed his favourite method, the principle of organisation he constantly applied. He excited his employees' passions, pitted one against the other, allowed the strongest to swallow up the weakest, fattening on this interested struggle. The specimen book was approved of; at the top of the two forms--the one retained, and the one torn off--were the particulars of the department and the salesman's number; then there were columns on both for the measurement, description of the articles sold, and the price; the salesman simply signed the bill before handing it to the cashier. In this way an easy account was kept, it sufficed to compare the bills delivered by the cashier's department to the clearing-house with the salesmen's counterfoils. Every week the latter would receive their commission, and that without the least possibility of any error. “We sha'n't be robbed so much,” remarked Bourdoncle, with satisfaction. “A very good idea of yours.”