e disinterested creature on earth
than me; but don't you go into the room with tears in your eyes, or M.
Pons will be thinking himself worse than he is."

Schmucke was touched by this delicate feeling. He took La Cibot's hand
and gave it a final squeeze.

"Spare me!" cried the ex-oysterseller, leering at Schmucke.

"Bons," the good German said when he returned "Montame Zipod is an
anchel; 'tis an anchel dat brattles, but an anchel all der same."

"Do you think so? I have grown suspicious in the past month," said the
invalid, shaking his head. "After all I have been through, one comes
to believe in nothing but God and my friend--"

"Get bedder, and ve vill lif like kings, all tree of us," exclaimed
Schmucke.

"Cibot!" panted the portress as she entered the lodge. "Oh, my dear,
our fortune is made. My two gentlemen haven't nobody to come after
them, no natural children, no nothing, in short! Oh, I shall go round
to Ma'am Fontaine's and get her to tell my fortune on the cards, then
we shall know how much we are going to have--"

"Wife," said the little tailor, "it's ill counting on dead men's
shoes."

"Oh, I say, are _you_ going to worry me?" asked she, giving her spouse
a playful tap. "I know what I know! Dr. Poulain has given up M. Pons.
And we are going to be rich! My name will be down in the will. . . .
I'll see to that. Draw your needle in and out, and look after the
lodge; you will not do it for long now. We will retire, and go into
the country, out at Batignolles. A nice house and a fine garden; you
will amuse yourself with gardening, and I shall keep a servant!"

"Well, neighbor, and how are things going on upstairs?" The words were
spoken with the thick Auvergnat accent, and Remonencq put his head in
at the door. "Do you know what the collection is worth?"

"No, no, not yet. One can't go at that rate, my good man. I have
begun, myself, by finding out more important things--"

"More important!" exclaimed Remonencq; "why, what things can be more
important?"

"Come, let me do the steering, ragamuffin," said La Cibot
authoritatively.

"But thirty per cent on seven hundred thousand francs," persisted the
dealer in old iron; "you could be your own mistress for the rest of
your days on that."

"Be easy, Daddy Remonencq; when we want to know the value of the
things that the old man has got together, then we will see."

La Cibot went for the medicine ordered by Dr. Poulain, and put off her
consultat