board!"

"To be sure; that black board with red letters, hung over the door
leading from the alley up to your lodge."

"What, out in the street?"

"In the street, I tell you, precisely over your door."

"I wish I may die if I understand a single word of what you are talking
about! Do you, old dear?"

Alfred spoke not.

"Certainly," continued Madame Seraphin, "since it relates to M. Pipelet,
he can best explain to me what this board means."

Alfred uttered a sort of heavy, inarticulate groan, while his
bell-crowned hat recommenced its convulsive agitations. This pantomimic
action was meant to express that Alfred was in no condition to explain
anything to anybody, having his mind already sufficiently burdened with
an infinity of problematical questions he sought in vain to solve.

"Don't take any notice of poor dear Alfred, Madame Seraphin; he has got
the cramp in his stomach, and that makes him so very--But what is this
board of which you were speaking? Very likely it has just been put up by
the man who keeps the wine-shop at the corner."

"I tell you again it is no such thing. It is a small painted board, hung
up over your door,--I mean the door leading from the alley to the
street."

"Ah, you are laughing at us!"

"Indeed I am not. I saw it just now, as I came in; on it is written, in
large letters, 'Pipelet and Cabrion, dealers in Friendship and similar
Articles. Inquire of the Porter.'"

"Gracious goodness! Do you hear that, Alfred? Do you hear what is
written up over our door?"

Alfred gazed at Madame Seraphin with a bewildered look, but he neither
understood nor sought to understand her meaning.

"Do you mean to say," continued Madame Pipelet, confounded by this fresh
audacity, "that you positively saw a little board out in the street with
all that about Alfred and Cabrion, and dealing in friendship?"

"I tell you I have just seen it, and read with my own eyes what I
described to you. 'Well,' said I to myself, 'this is droll enough! M.
Pipelet is a shoemaker by trade, but here he writes up publicly that he
is a dealer in friendship along with a M. Cabrion! What can all this
mean? There is something meant more than meets the eye!' Still, as the
board further directed all persons desirous of knowing more to apply to
the porter, 'Oh,' thinks I, 'Madame Pipelet can explain all this to me!'
But, look, look!" cried Madame Seraphin, suddenly breaking off in her
remarks. "Your husband is taken ill! Mind