“Oh! for a few persons only; for those who know how to appreciate the value of the pains I bestow upon them. Now, take the aristocracy--there is but one man there who has truly comprehended the Hat; and that is the Prince de Bethune. How is it that men do not consider, as women do, that the hat is the first thing that strikes the eye? And why have they never thought of changing the present system, which is, let us say it frankly, ignoble? Yes, ignoble; and yet a Frenchman is, of all nationalities, the one most persistent in this folly! I know the difficulties of a change, messieurs. I don’t speak of my own writings on the matter, which, as I think, approach it philosophically, but simply as a hatter. I have myself studied means to accentuate the infamous head-covering to which France is now enslaved until I succeed in overthrowing it.” So saying he pointed to the hideous hat in vogue at the present day. “Behold the enemy, messieurs,” he continued. “How is it that the wittiest and most satirical people on earth will consent to wear upon their heads a bit of stove-pipe?--as one of our great writers has called it. Here are some of the infections I have been able to give to those atrocious lines,” he added, pointing to a number of his creations. “But, although I am able to conform them to the character of each wearer--for, as you see, there are the hats of a doctor, a grocer, a dandy, an artist, a fat man, a thin man, and so forth--the style itself remains horrible. Seize, I beg of you, my whole thought--” He took up a hat, low-crowned and wide-brimmed. “This,” he continued, “is the old hat of Claude Vignon, a great critic, in the days when he was a free man and a free-liver. He has lately come round to the ministry; they’ve made him a professor, a librarian; he writes now for the Debats only; they’ve appointed him Master of Petitions with a salary of sixteen thousand francs; he earns four thousand more out of his paper, and he is decorated. Well, now see his new hat.” And Vital showed them a hat of a form and design which was truly expressive of the juste-milieu. “You ought to have made him a Punch and Judy hat!” cried Gazonal. “You are a man of genius, Monsieur Vital,” said Leon. Vital bowed. “Would you kindly tell me why the shops of your trade in Paris remain open late at night,--later than the cafes and the wineshops? That fact puzzles me very much,” said Gazonal. “In the first place, our shops are much finer when lighted up than they are in the daytime; next, where we sell ten hats in the daytime we sell fifty at night.” “Everything is queer in Paris,” said Leon. “Thanks to my efforts and my successes,” said Vital, returning to the course of his self-laudation, “we are coming to hats with round headpieces. It is to that I tend!” “What obstacle is there?” asked Gazonal.