It would be better to accept these useless goatskins--chinese bronze

It was not the Persian chimes at the shop door, but the shrill ring of the servants' entrance, a repulsive sound that had always annoyed him. He had often made up his mind to have the thing removed and replaced with a more pleasant bell, but then the cost would always seem excessive. The thought suddenly occurred to him-and he giggled as it did-that it made no difference now, he would be selling the obtrusive doorbell along with the house. Let his successor deal with the vexation!
The bell rang shrilly again. He cocked his ear for sounds below. Apparently Chenier had already left the shop. And the servant girl seemed not about to answer it either. So Baldini went downstairs to open the door himself.
He pulled back the bolt, swung the heavy door open-and saw nothing. The darkness completely swallowed the light of his candle. Then, very gradually, he began to make out a figure, a child or a half-grown boy carrying something over his arm.
"What do you want?"
"I'm from Maitre Grimal, I'm delivering the goatskins," said the figure and stepped closer and held out to him a stack of hides hanging from his cocked arm. By the light of his candle, Baldini could now see the boy's face and his nervous, searching eyes. He carried himself hunched over. He looked as if he were hiding behind his own outstretched arm, waiting to be struck a blow. It was Grenouille.
THE GOATSKINS for the Spanish leather! Baldini remembered now. He had ordered the hides from Grimal a few days before, the finest, softest goatskin to be used as a blotter for Count Verhamont's desk, fifteen francs apiece. But he really did not need them anymore and could spare the expense. On the other hand, if he were simply to send the boy back... ? Who knew-it could make a bad impression, people might begin to talk, rumors might start: Baldini is getting undependable, Baldini isn't getting any orders, Baldini can't pay his bills... and that would not be good; no, no, because something like that was likely to lower the selling price of his business. It would be better to accept these useless goatskins. No one needed to know ahead of time that Giuseppe Baldini had changed his life.
"Come in!"
He let the boy inside, and they walked across to the shop, Baldini leading with the candle, Grenouille behind him with the hides. It was the first time Grenouille had ever been in a perfumery, a place in which odors are not accessories but stand unabashedly at the center of interest. Naturally he knew every single perfumery and apothecary in the city, had stood for nights on end at their shop windows, his nose pressed to the cracks of their doors. He knew every single odor handled here and had often merged them in his innermost thoughts to create the most splendid perfumes.