hese"
(and lifting one of the covers of the basket he slipped in the poppies)
"you'll procure the poor man a good, long sleep,--five or six hours at
least. This evening I'll come and see you, and nothing, I think, need
prevent us from examining a little closer those matters of inheritance."

"I see," said Madame Cardinal, winking.

"To-night, then," said Cerizet, not wishing to prolong the conversation.

He had a strong sense of the difficulty and danger of the affair,
and was very reluctant to be seen in the street conversing with his
accomplice.

Returning to her uncle's garret, Madame Cardinal found him still in
a state of semi-torpor; she relieved Madame Perrache, and bade her
good-bye, going to the door to receive a supply of wood, all sawed,
which she had ordered from the Auvergnat in the rue Ferou.

Into an earthen pot, which she had bought of the right size to fit upon
the hole in the stoves of the poor where they put their soup-kettles,
she now threw the poppies, pouring over them two-thirds of the wine
she had brought back with her. Then she lighted a fire beneath the pot,
intending to obtain the decoction agreed upon as quickly as possible.
The crackling of the wood and the heat, which soon spread about the
room, brought Toupillier out of his stupor. Seeing the stove lighted he
called out:--

"Who is making a fire here? Do you want to burn the house down?"

"Why, uncle," said the Cardinal, "it is wood I bought with my own money,
to warm your wine. The doctor doesn't want you to drink it cold."

"Where is it, that wine?" demanded Toupillier, calming down a little at
the thought that the fire was not burning at his expense.

"It must come to a boil," said his nurse; "the doctor insisted upon
that. Still, if you'll be good I'll give you half a glass of it cold,
just to wet your whistle. I'll take that upon myself, but don't you tell
the doctor."

"Doctor! I won't have a doctor; they are all scoundrels, invented to
kill people," cried Toupillier, whom the idea of drink had revived.
"Come, give me the wine!" he said, in the tone of a man whose patience
had come to an end.

Convinced that though this compliance would do no harm it could do no
good, Madame Cardinal poured out half a glass, and while she gave
it with one hand to the sick man, with the other she raised him to a
sitting posture that he might drink it.

With his fleshless, eager fingers Toupillier clutched the glass, emptied
it at a gulp,