and took the opportunity to obtain from Schmucke (how easily!) a
receipt for two thousand francs, which she had lent, she said, to
the friends.

"Oh, what a doctor M. Poulain is!" cried La Cibot, for Pons' benefit.
"He will bring you through, my dear sir, for he pulled me out of my
coffin! Cibot, poor man, thought I was dead. . . . Well, Dr. Poulain
will have told you that while I was in bed I thought of nothing but
you. 'God above,' said I, 'take me, and let my dear Mr. Pons live--'"

"Poor dear Mme. Cibot, you all but crippled yourself for me."

"Ah! but for Dr. Poulain I should have been put to bed with a shovel
by now, as we shall all be one day. Well, what must be, must, as the
old actor said. One must take things philosophically. How did you get
on without me?"

"Schmucke nursed me," said the invalid; "but our poor money-box and
our lessons have suffered. I do not know how he managed."

"Calm yourself, Bons," exclaimed Schmucke; "ve haf in Zipod ein
panker--"

"Do not speak of it, my lamb. You are our children, both of you,"
cried La Cibot. "Our savings will be well invested; you are safer than
the Bank. So long as we have a morsel of bread, half of it is yours.
It is not worth mentioning--"

"Boor Montame Zipod!" said Schmucke, and he went.

Pons said nothing.

"Would you believe it, my cherub?" said La Cibot, as the sick man
tossed uneasily, "in my agony--for it was a near squeak for me--the
thing that worried me most was the thought that I must leave you
alone, with no one to look after you, and my poor Cibot without a
farthing. . . . My savings are such a trifle, that I only mention them
in connection with my death and Cibot, an angel that he is! No. He
nursed me as if I had been a queen, he did, and cried like a calf over
me! . . . But I counted on you, upon my word. I said to him, 'There,
Cibot! my gentlemen will not let you starve--'"

Pons made no reply to this thrust _ad testamentum_; but as the
portress waited for him to say something--"I shall recommend you to M.
Schmucke," he said at last.

"Ah!" cried La Cibot, "whatever you do will be right; I trust in you
and your heart. Let us never talk of this again; you make me feel
ashamed, my cherub. Think of getting better, you will outlive us all
yet."

Profound uneasiness filled Mme. Cibot's mind. She cast about for some
way of making the sick man understand that she expected a legacy. That
evening, when Schmucke was eating his dinner as u