e last ten days the Auvergnat had
been playing Providence in a manner singularly displeasing to Justice,
which claims the monopoly of that part. He had made up his mind to rid
himself at all costs of the one obstacle in his way to happiness,
and happiness for him meant capital trebled and marriage with the
irresistibly charming portress. He had watched the little tailor
drinking his herb-tea, and a thought struck him. He would convert the
ailment into mortal sickness; his stock of old metals supplied him with
the means.

One morning as he leaned against the door-post, smoking his pipe and
dreaming of that fine shop on the Boulevard de la Madeleine where Mme.
Cibot, gorgeously arrayed, should some day sit enthroned, his eyes
fell upon a copper disc, about the size of a five-franc piece, covered
thickly with verdigris. The economical idea of using Cibot's medicine to
clean the disc immediately occurred to him. He fastened the thing in a
bit of twine, and came over every morning to inquire for tidings of
his friend the tailor, timing his visit during La Cibot's visit to her
gentlemen upstairs. He dropped the disc into the tumbler, allowed it to
steep there while he talked, and drew it out again by the string when he
went away.

The trace of tarnished copper, commonly called verdigris, poisoned
the wholesome draught; a minute dose administered by stealth did
incalculable mischief. Behold the results of this criminal homoeopathy!
On the third day poor Cibot's hair came out, his teeth were loosened in
their sockets, his whole system was deranged by a scarcely perceptible
trace of poison. Dr. Poulain racked his brains. He was enough of a man
of science to see that some destructive agent was at work. He privately
carried off the decoction, analyzed it himself, but found nothing. It so
chanced that Remonencq had taken fright and omitted to dip the disc in
the tumbler that day.

Then Dr. Poulain fell back on himself and science and got out of the
difficulty with a theory. A sedentary life in a damp room; a cramped
position before the barred window--these conditions had vitiated the
blood in the absence of proper exercise, especially as the patient
continually breathed an atmosphere saturated with the fetid exhalations
of the gutter. The Rue de Normandie is one of the old-fashioned streets
that slope towards the middle; the municipal authorities of Paris as yet
have laid on no water supply to flush the central kennel which drai