bot! For, after all, you aren't nothing to me,
you are only my brother by Adam's side; and yet, whenever you are in
the question, it puts me in such a taking, upon my word it does! I
would cut off my hand--my left hand, of course--to see you coming and
going, eating your meals, and screwing bargains out of dealers as
usual. If I had had a child of my own, I think I should have loved it
as I love you, eh! There, take a drink, dearie; come now, empty the
glass. Drink it off, monsieur, I tell you! The first thing Dr. Poulain
said was, 'If M. Pons has no mind to go to Pere Lachaise, he ought to
drink as many buckets full of water in a day as an Auvergnat will
sell.' So, come now, drink--"

"But I do drink, Cibot, my good woman; I drink and drink till I am
deluged--"

"That is right," said the portress, as she took away the empty glass.
"That is the way to get better. Dr. Poulain had another patient ill of
your complaint; but he had nobody to look after him, his children left
him to himself, and he died because he didn't drink enough--so you
must drink, honey, you see--he died and they buried him two months
ago. And if you were to die, you know, you would drag down old M.
Schmucke with you, sir. He is like a child. Ah! he loves you, he does,
the dear lamb of a man; no woman never loved a man like that! He
doesn't care for meat nor drink; he has grown as thin as you are in
the last fortnight, and you are nothing but skin and bones.--It makes
me jealous to see it, for I am very fond of you; but not to that
degree; I haven't lost my appetite, quite the other way; always going
up and down stairs, till my legs are so tired that I drop down of an
evening like a lump of lead. Here am I neglecting my poor Cibot for
you; Mlle. Remonencq cooks his victuals for him, and he goes on about
it and says that nothing is right! At that I tell him that one ought
to put up with something for the sake of other people, and that you
are so ill that I cannot leave you. In the first place, you can't
afford a nurse. And before I would have a nurse here!--I have done for
you these ten years; they want wine and sugar, and foot-warmers, and
all sorts of comforts. And they rob their patients unless the patients
leave them something in their wills. Have a nurse in here to-day, and
to-morrow we should find a picture or something or other gone--"

"Oh! Mme. Cibot!" cried Pons, quite beside himself, "do not leave me!
No one must touch anything--"

"I am