itself through various slits in it here and there;
the weight of this lining had pulled the skirts aside, disclosing a
dingy-hued flannel waistcoat beneath. With something of a coxcomb's
manner, Fraisier fastened this refractory article of dress, tightening
the girdle to define his reedy figure; then with a blow of the tongs,
he effected a reconciliation between two burning brands that had long
avoided one another, like brothers after a family quarrel. A sudden
bright idea struck him, and he rose from his chair.

"Mme. Sauvage!" called he.

"Well?"

"I am not at home to anybody!"

"Eh! bless your life, there's no need to say that!"

"She is my old nurse," the lawyer said in some confusion.

"And she has not recovered her figure yet," remarked the heroine of the
Halles.

Fraisier laughed, and drew the bolt lest his housekeeper should
interrupt Mme. Cibot's confidences.

"Well, madame, explain your business," said he, making another effort
to drape himself in the dressing-gown. "Any one recommended to me by
the only friend I have in the world may count upon me--I may
say--absolutely."

For half an hour Mme. Cibot talked, and the man of law made no
interruption of any sort; his face wore the expression of curious
interest with which a young soldier listens to a pensioner of "The Old
Guard." Fraisier's silence and acquiescence, the rapt attention with
which he appeared to listen to a torrent of gossip similar to the
samples previously given, dispelled some of the prejudices inspired in
La Cibot's mind by his squalid surroundings. The little lawyer with the
black-speckled green eyes was in reality making a study of his client.
When at length she came to a stand and looked to him to speak, he was
seized with a fit of the complaint known as a "churchyard cough," and
had recourse to an earthenware basin half full of herb tea, which he
drained.

"But for Poulain, my dear madame, I should have been dead before this,"
said Fraisier, by way of answer to the portress' look of motherly
compassion; "but he will bring me round, he says--"

As all the client's confidences appeared to have slipped from the memory
of her legal adviser, she began to cast about for a way of taking leave
of a man so apparently near death.

"In an affair of this kind, madame," continued the attorney from Mantes,
suddenly returning to business, "there are two things which it is
most important to know. In the first place, whether the property is