profession, named herself, and spoke of her house
in the Rue de Normandie, and the two women were on cordial terms at
once. After a quarter of an hour spent in gossip while the shoemaker's
wife made breakfast ready for her husband and the children, Mme. Cibot
turned the conversation to the subject of the lodgers, and spoke of the
lawyer.

"I have come to see him on business," she said. "One of his friends, Dr.
Poulain, recommended me to him. Do you know Dr. Poulain?"

"I should think I do," said the lady of the Rue de la Perle. "He saved
my little girl's life when she had the croup."

"He saved my life, too, madame. What sort of a man is this M. Fraisier?"

"He is the sort of man, my dear lady, out of whom it is very difficult
to get the postage-money at the end of the month."

To a person of La Cibot's intelligence this was enough.

"One may be poor and honest," observed she.

"I am sure I hope so," returned Fraisier's portress. "We are not
rolling in coppers, let alone gold or silver; but we have not a farthing
belonging to anybody else."

This sort of talk sounded familiar to La Cibot.

"In short, one can trust him, child, eh?"

"Lord! when M. Fraisier means well by any one, there is not his like, so
I have heard Mme. Florimond say."

"And why didn't she marry him when she owed her fortune to him?" La
Cibot asked quickly. "It is something for a little haberdasher, kept by
an old man, to be a barrister's wife--"

"Why?--" asked the portress, bringing Mme. Cibot out into the passage.
"Why?--You are going to see him, are you not, madame?--Very well, when
you are in his office you will know why."

From the state of the staircase, lighted by sash-windows on the side of
the yard, it was pretty evident that the inmates of the house, with the
exception of the landlord and M. Fraisier himself, were all workmen.
There were traces of various crafts in the deposit of mud upon the
steps--brass-filings, broken buttons, scraps of gauze, and esparto grass
lay scattered about. The walls of the upper stories were covered with
apprentices' ribald scrawls and caricatures. The portress' last remark
had roused La Cibot's curiosity; she decided, not unnaturally, that she
would consult Dr. Poulain's friend; but as for employing him, that must
depend upon her impressions.

"I sometimes wonder how Mme. Sauvage can stop in his service," said the
portress, by way of comment; she was following in Mme. Cibot's wake. "I
will come