ne of Monsieur the Viscount's health. He
became paler and weaker, and more fretful. His prayers were
accompanied by greater mental struggles, and watered with more tears.
He was, however, most positive in his assurances to Monsieur Crapaud
that he knew the exact nature and cause of the malady that was
consuming him. It resulted, he said, from the noxious and unwholesome
condition of his cell; and he would entreat Antoine to have it swept
out. After some difficulty the gaoler consented.

It was nearly a month since Monsieur the Viscount had first been
startled by the appearance of the little pincushion. The stock of
paper had long been exhausted. He had torn up his cambric ruffles to
write upon, and Mademoiselle de St. Claire had made havoc of her
pocket-handkerchiefs for the same purpose. The Viscount was feebler
than ever, and Antoine became alarmed. The cell should be swept out
the next morning. He would come himself, he said, and bring another
man out of the town with him to help him, for the work was heavy, and
he had a touch of rheumatism. The man was a stupid fellow from the
country, who had only been a week in Paris; he had never heard of the
Viscount, and Antoine would tell him that the prisoner was a certain
young lawyer who had really died of fever in prison the day before.
Monsieur the Viscount thanked him; and it was not till the next
morning arrived, and he was expecting them every moment, that Monsieur
the Viscount remembered the toad, and that he would without doubt be
swept away with the rest in the general clearance. At first he thought
that he would beg them to leave it, but some knowledge of the petty
insults which that class of men heaped upon their prisoners made him
feel that this would probably be only an additional reason for their
taking the animal away. There was no place to hide it in, for they
would go all round the room; unless--unless Monsieur the Viscount took
it up in his hand. And this was just what he objected to do. All his
old feelings of repugnance came back; he had not even got gloves on;
his long white hands were bare, he could not touch a toad. It was true
that the beast had amused him, and that he had chatted to it; but,
after all, this was a piece of childish folly--an unmanly way, to say
the least, of relieving the tedium of captivity. What was Monsieur
Crapaud but a very ugly (and most people said a venomous) reptile? To
what a folly he had been condescending! With these thoug