bedroom and catching sight
of the old musician's white, wasted face. "Well, old boy, so we are
not very well? Everybody at the theatre is asking after you; but though
one's heart may be in the right place, every one has his own affairs,
you know, and cannot find time to go to see friends. Gaudissart talks of
coming round every day, and every morning the tiresome management gets
hold of him. Still, we are all of us fond of you--"

"Mme. Cibot," said the patient, "be so kind as to leave us; we want
to talk about the theatre and my post as conductor, with this lady.
Schmucke, will you go to the door with Mme. Cibot?"

At a sign from Pons, Schmucke saw Mme. Cibot out at the door, and drew
the bolts.

"Ah, that blackguard of a German! Is he spoiled, too?" La Cibot said to
herself as she heard the significant sounds. "That is M. Pons' doing;
he taught him those disgusting tricks.... But you shall pay for this, my
dears," she thought as she went down stairs. "Pooh! if that tight-rope
dancer tells him about the thousand francs, I shall say that it is a
farce."

She seated herself by Cibot's pillow. Cibot complained of a burning
sensation in the stomach. Remonencq had called in and given him a
draught while his wife was upstairs.

As soon as Schmucke had dismissed La Cibot, Pons turned to the
ballet-girl.

"Dear child, I can trust no one else to find me a notary, an honest man,
and send him here to make my will to-morrow morning at half-past
nine precisely. I want to leave all that I have to Schmucke. If he is
persecuted, poor German that he is, I shall reckon upon the notary;
the notary must defend him. And for that reason I must have a wealthy
notary, highly thought of, a man above the temptations to which
pettifogging lawyers yield. He must succor my poor friend. I cannot
trust Berthier, Cardot's successor. And you know so many people--"

"Oh! I have the very man for you," Heloise broke in; "there is the
notary that acts for Florine and the Comtesse du Bruel, Leopold
Hannequin, a virtuous man that does not know what a _lorette_ is! He
is a sort of chance-come father--a good soul that will not let you play
ducks and drakes with your earnings; I call him _Le Pere aux Rats_,
because he instils economical notions into the minds of all my friends.
In the first place, my dear fellow, he has a private income of sixty
thousand francs; and he is a notary of the real old sort, a notary while
he walks or sleeps; his children mu