t's
cook, would sigh aloud, "Ah, Sophie!" Any passer-by hearing the
exclamation might have thought that the old man referred to a lost
mistress; but his fancy dwelt upon something rarer, on a fat Rhine carp
with a sauce, thin in the sauce-boat, creamy upon the palate, a sauce
that deserved the Montyon prize! The conductor of the orchestra, living
on memories of past dinners, grew visibly leaner; he was pining away, a
victim to gastric nostalgia.

By the beginning of the fourth month (towards the end of January, 1845),
Pons' condition attracted attention at the theatre. The flute, a young
man named Wilhelm, like almost all Germans; and Schwab, to distinguish
him from all other Wilhelms, if not from all other Schwabs, judged it
expedient to open Schmucke's eyes to his friend's state of health. It
was a first performance of a piece in which Schmucke's instruments were
all required.

"The old gentleman is failing," said the flute; "there is something
wrong somewhere; his eyes are heavy, and he doesn't beat time as he used
to do," added Wilhelm Schwab, indicating Pons as he gloomily took his
place.

"Dat is alvays de vay, gif a man is sixty years old," answered Schmucke.

The Highland widow, in _The Chronicles of the Canongate_, sent her son
to his death to have him beside her for twenty-four hours; and Schmucke
could have sacrificed Pons for the sake of seeing his face every day
across the dinner-table.

"Everybody in the theatre is anxious about him," continued the flute;
"and, as the _premiere danseuse_, Mlle. Brisetout, says, 'he makes
hardly any noise now when he blows his nose.'"

And, indeed, a peal like a blast of a horn used to resound through
the old musician's bandana handkerchief whenever he raised it to that
lengthy and cavernous feature. The President's wife had more frequently
found fault with him on that score than on any other.

"I vould gif a goot teal to amuse him," said Schmucke, "he gets so
dull."

"M. Pons always seems so much above the like of us poor devils, that,
upon my word, I didn't dare to ask him to my wedding," said Wilhelm
Schwab. "I am going to be married--"

"How?" demanded Schmucke.

"Oh! quite properly," returned Wilhelm Schwab, taking Schmucke's quaint
inquiry for a gibe, of which that perfect Christian was quite incapable.

"Come, gentlemen, take your places!" called Pons, looking round at his
little army, as the stage manager's bell rang for the overture.

The piece was