ure
old M. Pillerault. Poulain made his rounds on foot, scouring the Marais
like a lean cat, and obtained from two to forty sous out of a score
of visits. The paying patient was a phenomenon about as rare as that
anomalous fowl known as a "white blackbird" in all sublunary regions.

The briefless barrister, the doctor without a patient, are pre-eminently
the two types of a decorous despair peculiar to this city of Paris;
it is mute, dull despair in human form, dressed in a black coat and
trousers with shining seams that recall the zinc on an attic roof, a
glistening satin waistcoat, a hat preserved like a relic, a pair of old
gloves, and a cotton shirt. The man is the incarnation of a melancholy
poem, sombre as the secrets of the Conciergerie. Other kinds of poverty,
the poverty of the artist--actor, painter, musician, or poet--are
relieved and lightened by the artist's joviality, the reckless gaiety
of the Bohemian border country--the first stage of the journey to the
Thebaid of genius. But these two black-coated professions that go afoot
through the street are brought continually in contact with disease and
dishonor; they see nothing of human nature but its sores; in the
forlorn first stages and beginnings of their career they eye competitors
suspiciously and defiantly; concentrated dislike and ambition flashes
out in glances like the breaking forth of hidden flames. Let two
schoolfellows meet after twenty years, the rich man will avoid the poor;
he does not recognize him, he is afraid even to glance into the gulf
which Fate has set between him and the friend of other years. The one
has been borne through life on the mettlesome steed called Fortune, or
wafted on the golden clouds of success; the other has been making his
way in underground Paris through the sewers, and bears the marks of his
career upon him. How many a chum of old days turned aside at the sight
of the doctor's greatcoat and waistcoat!

With this explanation, it should be easy to understand how Dr. Poulain
came to lend himself so readily to the farce of La Cibot's illness and
recovery. Greed of every kind, ambition of every nature, is not easy to
hide. The doctor examined his patient, found that every organ was sound
and healthy, admired the regularity of her pulse and the perfect ease of
her movements; and as she continued to moan aloud, he saw that for some
reason she found it convenient to lie at Death's door. The speedy cure
of a serious imaginary