ear.

When Pons took to his bed, Schmucke filled his place at the theatre and
gave lessons for him at his boarding-schools. He did his utmost to do
the work of two; but Pons' sorrows weighing heavily upon his mind, the
task took all his strength. He only saw his friend in the morning, and
again at dinnertime. His pupils and the people at the theatre, seeing
the poor German look so unhappy, used to ask for news of Pons; and so
great was his grief, that the indifferent would make the grimaces
of sensibility which Parisians are wont to reserve for the greatest
calamities. The very springs of life had been attacked, the good German
was suffering from Pons' pain as well as from his own. When he gave a
music lesson, he spent half the time in talking of Pons, interrupting
himself to wonder whether his friend felt better to-day, and the little
school-girls listening heard lengthy explanations of Pons' symptoms.
He would rush over to the Rue de Normandie in the interval between two
lessons for the sake of a quarter of an hour with Pons.

When at last he saw that their common stock was almost exhausted, when
Mme. Cibot (who had done her best to swell the expenses of the illness)
came to him and frightened him; then the old music-master felt that he
had courage of which he never thought himself capable--courage that rose
above his anguish. For the first time in his life he set himself to earn
money; money was needed at home. One of the school-girl pupils, really
touched by their troubles, asked Schmucke how he could leave his friend
alone. "Montemoiselle," he answered, with the sublime smile of those who
think no evil, "ve haf Montame Zipod, ein dreasure, montemoiselle, ein
bearl! Bons is nursed like ein brince."

So while Schmucke trotted about the streets, La Cibot was mistress
of the house and ruled the invalid. How should Pons superintend his
self-appointed guardian angel, when he had taken no solid food for a
fortnight, and lay there so weak and helpless that La Cibot was obliged
to lift him up and carry him to the sofa while she made the bed?

La Cibot's visit to Elie Magus was paid (as might be expected) while
Schmucke breakfasted. She came in again just as the German was bidding
his friend good-bye; for since she learned that Pons possessed a
fortune, she never left the old bachelor; she brooded over him and his
treasures like a hen. From the depths of a comfortable easy-chair at
the foot of the bed she poured forth for