She drew Schmucke to the glass, and Schmucke thought that there was a great change.

“So, if you are of my mind, I’ll have your breakfast ready in a jiffy.  Then you will look after our poor dear again till two o’clock.  Let me have a list of your people, and I will soon arrange it.  You will be free for a fortnight.  You can go to bed when I come in, and sleep till night.”

So prudent did the proposition seem, that Schmucke then and there agreed to it.

“Not a word to M. Pons; he would think it was all over with him, you know, if we were to tell him in this way that his engagement at the theatre and his lessons are put off.  He would be thinking that he should not find his pupils again, poor gentleman—­stuff and nonsense!  M. Poulain says that we shall save our Benjamin if we keep him as quiet as possible.”

“Ach! fery goot!  Pring up der preakfast; I shall make der bett, and gif you die attresses!—­You are right; it vould pe too much for me.”

An hour later La Cibot, in her Sunday clothes, departed in great state, to the no small astonishment of the Remonencqs; she promised herself that she would support the character of confidential servant of the pair of nutcrackers, in the boarding-schools and private families in which they gave music-lessons.

It is needless to repeat all the gossip in which La Cibot indulged on her round.  The members of every family, the head-mistress of every boarding-school, were treated to a variation upon the theme of Pons’ illness.  A single scene, which took place in the Illustrious Gaudissart’s private room, will give a sufficient idea of the rest.  La Cibot met with unheard-of difficulties, but she succeeded in penetrating at last to the presence.  Kings and cabinet ministers are less difficult of access than the manager of a theatre in Paris; nor is it hard to understand why such prodigious barriers are raised between them and ordinary mortals:  a king has only to defend himself from ambition; the manager of a theatre has reason to dread the wounded vanity of actors and authors.

La Cibot, however, struck up an acquaintance with the portress, and traversed all distances in a brief space.  There is a sort of freemasonry among the porter tribe, and, indeed, among the members of every profession; for each calling has its shibboleth, as well as its insulting epithet and the mark with which it brands its followers.

“Ah! madame, you are the portress here,” began La Cibot.  “I myself am a portress, in a small way, in a house in the Rue de Normandie.  M. Pons, your conductor, lodges with us.  Oh, how glad I should be to have your place, and see the actors and dancers and authors go past.  It is the marshal’s baton in our profession, as the old actor said.”

“And how is M. Pons going on, good man?” inquired the portress.

“He is not going on at all; he has not left his bed these two months.  He will only leave the house feet foremost, that is certain.”