e, you aren't no saint! You were young in your time, and a
fine-looking young fellow you must have been at twenty. I should have
fallen in love with you myself, so nice as you are--"

"I always was as ugly as a toad," Pons put in desperately.

"You say that because you are modest; nobody can't say that you aren't
modest."

"My dear Mme. Cibot, _no_, I tell you. I always was ugly, and I never
was loved in my life."

"You, indeed!" cried the portress. "You want to make me believe at
this time of day that you are as innocent as a young maid at your time
of life. Tell that to your granny! A musician at a theatre too! Why,
if a woman told me that, I wouldn't believe her."

"Montame Zipod, you irritate him!" cried Schmucke, seeing that Pons
was writhing under the bedclothes.

"You hold your tongue too! You are a pair of old libertines. If you
were ugly, it don't make no difference; there was never so ugly a
saucepan-lid but it found a pot to match, as the saying is. There is
Cibot, he got one of the handsomest oyster-women in Paris to fall in
love with him, and you are infinitely better looking than him! You are
a nice pair, you are! Come, now, you have sown your wild oats, and God
will punish you for deserting your children, like Abraham--"

Exhausted though he was, the invalid gathered up all his strength to
make a vehement gesture of denial.

"Do lie quiet; if you have, it won't prevent you from living as long
as Methuselah."

"Then, pray let me be quiet!" groaned Pons. "I have never known what
it is to be loved. I have had no child; I am alone in the world."

"Really, eh?" returned the portress. "You are so kind, and that is
what women like, you see--it draws them--and it looked to me
impossible that when you were in your prime--"

"Take her away," Pons whispered to Schmucke; "she sets my nerves on
edge."

"Then there's M. Schmucke, he has children. You old bachelors are not
all like that--"

"_I!_" cried Schmucke, springing to his feet, "vy!--"

"Come, then, you have none to come after you either, eh? You both
sprung up out of the earth like mushrooms--"

"Look here, komm mit me," said Schmucke. The good German manfully took
Mme. Cibot by the waist and carried her off into the next room, in
spite of her exclamations.

"At your age, you would not take advantage of a defenceless woman!"
cried La Cibot, struggling in his arms.

"Don't make a noise!"

"You too, the better one of the two!" returned La