and exclaimed:--

"Ah! that's a fine drop, that is! though you've watered it."

"You mustn't say that, uncle; I went and bought it myself of Pere
Legrelu, and I've given it you quite pure. But you let me simmer the
rest; the doctor said I might then give you all you wanted."

Toupillier resigned himself with a shrug of the shoulders. At the end
of fifteen minutes, the infusion being in condition to serve, Madame
Cardinal brought him, without further appeal, a full cup of it.

The avidity with which the old pauper drank it down prevented him from
noticing at first that the wine was drugged; but as he swallowed the
last drops he tasted the sickly and nauseating flavor, and flinging the
cup on the bed he cried out that some one was trying to poison him.

"Poison! nonsense!" said the fishwife, pouring into her own mouth a few
drops of that which remained in the bottle, declaring to the old man
that if the wine did not seem to him the same as usual, it was because
his mouth had a "bad taste to it."

Before the end of the dispute, which lasted some time, the narcotic
began to take effect, and at the end of an hour the sick man was sound
asleep.

While idly waiting for Cerizet, an idea took possession of the
Cardinal's mind. She thought that in view of their comings and goings
with the treasure, it would be well if the vigilance of the Perrache
husband and wife could be dulled in some manner. Consequently, after
carefully flinging the refuse poppy-heads into the privy, she called to
the portress:--

"Madame Perrache, come up and taste his wine. Wouldn't you have thought
to hear him talk he was ready to drink a cask of it? Well, a cupful
satisfied him."

"Your health!" said the portress, touching glasses with the Cardinal,
who was careful to have hers filled with the unboiled wine. Less
accomplished as a gourmet than the old beggar, Madame Perrache perceived
nothing in the insidious liquid (cold by the time she drank it) to make
her suspect its narcotic character; on the contrary, she declared it was
"velvet," and wished that her husband were there to have a share in the
treat. After a rather long gossip, the two women separated. Then, with
the cooked meat she had provided for herself, and the remains of the
Roussillon, Madame Cardinal made a repast which she finished off with a
siesta. Without mentioning the emotions of the day, the influence of one
of the most heady wines of the country would have sufficed to expla