“You can stay, mother,” said the doctor, laying a hand on Mme. Poulain’s arm; “this is Mme. Cibot, of whom I have told you.”

“My respects to you, madame, and my duty to you, sir,” said La Cibot, taking the chair which the doctor offered.  “Ah! is this your mother, sir?  She is very happy to have a son who has such talent; he saved my life, madame, brought me back from the depths.”

The widow, hearing Mme. Cibot praise her son in this way, thought her a delightful woman.

“I have just come to tell you, that, between ourselves, poor M. Pons is doing very badly, sir, and I have something to say to you about him—­”

“Let us go into the sitting-room,” interrupted the doctor, and with a significant gesture he indicated the servant.

In the sitting-room La Cibot explained her position with regard to the pair of nutcrackers at very considerable length.  She repeated the history of her loan with added embellishments, and gave a full account of the immense services rendered during the past ten years to MM.  Pons and Schmucke.  The two old men, to all appearance, could not exist without her motherly care.  She posed as an angel; she told so many lies, one after another, watering them with her tears, that old Mme. Poulain was quite touched.

“You understand, my dear sir,” she concluded, “that I really ought to know how far I can depend on M. Pons’ intentions, supposing that he should not die; not that I want him to die, for looking after those two innocents is my life, madame, you see; still, when one of them is gone I shall look after the other.  For my own part, I was built by Nature to rival mothers.  Without nobody to care for, nobody to take for a child, I don’t know what I should do. . . .  So if M. Poulain only would, he might do me a service for which I should be very grateful; and that is, to say a word to M. Pons for me.  Goodness me! an annuity of a thousand francs, is that too much, I ask you? . . .  To.  M. Schmucke it would be so much gained.—­Our dear patient said that he should recommend me to the German, poor man; it is his idea, no doubt, that M. Schmucke should be his heir.  But what is a man that cannot put two ideas together in French?  And besides, he would be quite capable of going back to Germany, he will be in such despair over his friend’s death—­”

The doctor grew grave.  “My dear Mme. Cibot,” he said, “this sort of thing does not in the least concern a doctor.  I should not be allowed to exercise my profession if it was known that I interfered in the matter of my patients’ testamentary dispositions.  The law forbids a doctor to receive a legacy from a patient—­”

“A stupid law!  What is to hinder me from dividing my legacy with you?” La Cibot said immediately.

“I will go further,” said the doctor; “my professional conscience will not permit me to speak to M. Pons of his death.  In the first place, he is not so dangerously ill that there is any need to speak of it, and in the second, such talk coming from me might give a shock to the system that would do him real harm, and then his illness might terminate fatally—­”