“Ah! there it is!  You would have the grand jeu; but don’t take on so, all the folk that are murdered on the cards don’t die.”

“But is it possible, Ma’am Fontaine?”

“Oh, I know nothing about it, my pretty dear!  You would rap at the door of the future; I pull the cord, and it came.”

“It, what?” asked Mme. Cibot.

“Well, then, the Spirit!” cried the sorceress impatiently.

“Good-bye, Ma’am Fontaine,” exclaimed the portress.  “I did not know what the grand jeu was like.  You have given me a good fright, that you have.”

“The mistress will not put herself in that state twice in a month,” said the servant, as she went with La Cibot to the landing.  “She would do herself to death if she did, it tires her so.  She will eat cutlets now and sleep for three hours afterwards.”

Out in the street La Cibot took counsel of herself as she went along, and, after the manner of all who ask for advice of any sort or description, she took the favorable part of the prediction and rejected the rest.  The next day found her confirmed in her resolutions —­she would set all in train to become rich by securing a part of Pons’ collection.  Nor for some time had she any other thought than the combination of various plans to this end.  The faculty of self-concentration seen in rough, uneducated persons, explained on a previous page, the reserve power accumulated in those whose mental energies are unworn by the daily wear and tear of social life, and brought into action so soon as that terrible weapon the “fixed idea” is brought into play,—­all this was pre-eminently manifested in La Cibot.  Even as the “fixed idea” works miracles of evasion, and brings forth prodigies of sentiment, so greed transformed the portress till she became as formidable as a Nucingen at bay, as subtle beneath her seeming stupidity as the irresistible La Palferine.

About seven o’clock one morning, a few days afterwards, she saw Remonencq taking down his shutters.  She went across to him.

“How could one find out how much the things yonder in my gentlemen’s rooms are worth?” she asked in a wheedling tone.

“Oh! that is quite easy,” replied the owner of the old curiosity shop.  “If you will play fair and above board with me, I will tell you of somebody, a very honest man, who will know the value of the pictures to a farthing—­”

“Who?”

“M.  Magus, a Jew.  He only does business to amuse himself now.”

Elie Magus has appeared so often in the Comedie Humaine, that it is needless to say more of him here.  Suffice it to add that he had retired from business, and as a dealer was following the example set by Pons the amateur.  Well-known valuers like Henry, Messrs. Pigeot and Moret, Theret, Georges, and Roehn, the experts of the Musee, in fact, were but children compared with Elie Magus.  He could see a masterpiece beneath the accumulated grime of a century; he knew all schools, and the handwriting of all painters.