“That lived in the Rue Vieille-du-Temple, at the corner of the Rue Saint-Francois?”

“The very same.  They say that she means to make her husband Home Secretary, and I do not know that she will not gain her end.—­If she were to take it into her head to send us both to the Criminal Court first and the hulks afterwards—­I should apply for a passport and set sail for America, though I am as innocent as a new-born babe.  So well I know what justice means.  Now, see here, my dear Mme. Cibot; to marry her only daughter to young Vicomte Popinot (heir to M. Pillerault, your landlord, it is said)—­to make that match, she stripped herself of her whole fortune, so much so that the President and his wife have nothing at this moment except his official salary.  Can you suppose, my dear madame, that under the circumstances Mme. la Presidente will let M. Pons’ property go out of the family without a word?—­Why, I would sooner face guns loaded with grape-shot than have such a woman for my enemy—­”

“But they have quarreled,” put in La Cibot.

“What has that got to do with it?” asked Fraisier.  “It is one reason the more for fearing her.  To kill a relative of whom you are tired, is something; but to inherit his property afterwards—­that is a real pleasure!”

“But the old gentleman has a horror of his relatives.  He says over and over again that these people—­M.  Cardot, M. Berthier, and the rest of them (I can’t remember their names)—­have crushed him as a tumbril cart crushes an egg—­”

“Have you a mind to be crushed too?”

“Oh dear! oh dear!” cried La Cibot.  “Ah!  Ma’am Fontaine was right when she said that I should meet with difficulties:  still, she said that I should succeed—­”

“Listen, my dear Mme. Cibot.—­As for making some thirty thousand francs out of this business—­that is possible; but for the whole of the property, it is useless to think of it.  We talked over your case yesterday evening, Dr. Poulain and I—­”

La Cibot started again.

“Well, what is the matter?”

“But if you knew about the affair, why did you let me chatter away like a magpie?”

“Mme. Cibot, I knew all about your business, but I knew nothing of Mme. Cibot.  So many clients, so many characters—­”

Mme. Cibot gave her legal adviser a queer look at this; all her suspicions gleamed in her eyes.  Fraisier saw this.

“I resume,” he continued.  “So, our friend Poulain was once called in by you to attend old M. Pillerault, the Countess Popinot’s great-uncle; that is one of your claims to my devotion.  Poulain goes to see your landlord (mark this!) once a fortnight; he learned all these particulars from him.  M. Pillerault was present at his grand-nephew’s wedding—­for he is an uncle with money to leave; he has an income of fifteen thousand francs, though he has lived like a hermit for the last five-and-twenty years, and scarcely spends a thousand crowns—­well, he told Poulain all about this marriage.  It seems that your old musician was precisely the cause of the row; he tried to disgrace his own family by way of revenge.—­If you only hear one bell, you only hear one sound.—­Your invalid says that he meant no harm, but everybody thinks him a monster of—­”