e rang through the room; the tones vibrated like the
strokes of a bell:

"Who is there?" called Pons.

"Monsieur! just go back to bed!" exclaimed La Cibot, springing upon
Pons and dragging him by main force. "What next! Have you a mind to kill
yourself?--Very well, then, it is not Dr. Poulain, it is Remonencq, good
soul, so anxious that he has come to ask after you!--Everybody is so
fond of you that the whole house is in a flutter. So what is there to
fear?"

"It seems to me that there are several of you," said Pons.

"Several? that is good! What next! Are you dreaming!--You will go off
your head before you have done, upon my word!--Here, look!"--and La
Cibot flung open the door, signed to Magus to go, and beckoned to
Remonencq.

"Well, my dear sir," said the Auvergnat, now supplied with something to
say, "I just came to ask after you, for the whole house is alarmed about
you.--Nobody likes Death to set foot in a house!--And lastly, Daddy
Monistrol, whom you know very well, told me to tell you that if you
wanted money he was at your service----"

"He sent you here to take a look round at my knick-knacks!" returned the
old collector from his bed; and the sour tones of his voice were full of
suspicion.

A sufferer from liver complaint nearly always takes momentary and
special dislikes to some person or thing, and concentrates all his
ill-humor upon the object. Pons imagined that some one had designs upon
his precious collection; the thought of guarding it became a fixed idea
with him; Schmucke was continually sent to see if any one had stolen
into the sanctuary.

"Your collection is fine enough to attract the attention of _chineurs_,"
Remonencq answered astutely. "I am not much in the art line myself; but
you are supposed to be such a great connoisseur, sir, that with my eyes
shut--supposing, for instance, that you should need money some time or
other, for nothing costs so much as these confounded illnesses; there
was my sister now, when she would have got better again just as well
without. Doctors are rascals that take advantage of your condition to--"

"Thank you, good-day, good-day," broke in Pons, eying the marine
store-dealer uneasily.

"I will go to the door with him, for fear he should touch something," La
Cibot whispered to her patient.

"Yes, yes," answered the invalid, thanking her by a glance.

La Cibot shut the bedroom door behind her, and Pons' suspicions awoke
again at once.

She found Magu