“How any one can get into such a state!” exclaimed she.  “After all, it is your illness, dearie.  That is what good M. Poulain says.  See now, keep quiet and be good, my dear little sonny.  Everybody that comes near you worships you, and the doctor himself comes to see you twice a day.  What would he say if he found you in such a way?  You put me out of all patience; you ought not to behave like this.  If you have Ma’am Cibot to nurse you, you should treat her better.  You shout and you talk!—­you ought not to do it, you know that.  Talking irritates you.  And why do you fly into a passion?  The wrong is all on your side; you are always bothering me.  Look here, let us have it out!  If M. Schmucke and I, who love you like our life, thought that we were doing right —­well, my cherub, it was right, you may be sure.”

“Schmucke never could have told you to go to the theatre without speaking to me about it—­”

“And must I wake him, poor dear, when he is sleeping like one of the blest, and call him in as a witness?”

“No, no!” cried Pons.  “If my kind and loving Schmucke made the resolution, perhaps I am worse than I thought.”  His eyes wandered round the room, dwelling on the beautiful things in it with a melancholy look painful to see.

“So I must say good-bye to my dear pictures, to all the things that have come to be like so many friends to me . . . and to my divine friend Schmucke? . . .  Oh! can it be true?”

La Cibot, acting her heartless comedy, held her handkerchief to her eyes; and at that mute response the sufferer fell to dark musing—­so sorely stricken was he by the double stab dealt to health and his interests by the loss of his post and the near prospect of death, that he had no strength left for anger.  He lay, ghastly and wan, like a consumptive patient after a wrestling bout with the Destroyer.

“In M. Schmucke’s interests, you see, you would do well to send for M. Trognon; he is the notary of the quarter and a very good man,” said La Cibot, seeing that her victim was completely exhausted.

“You are always talking about this Trognon—­”

“Oh! he or another, it is all one to me, for anything you will leave me.”

She tossed her head to signify that she despised riches.  There was silence in the room.

A moment later Schmucke came in.  He had slept for six hours, hunger awakened him, and now he stood at Pons’ bedside watching his friend without saying a word, for Mme. Cibot had laid a finger on her lips.

“Hush!” she whispered.  Then she rose and went up to add under her breath, “He is going off to sleep at last, thank Heaven!  He is as cross as a red donkey!—­What can you expect, he is struggling with his illness——­”

“No, on the contrary, I am very patient,” said the victim in a weary voice that told of a dreadful exhaustion; “but, oh!  Schmucke, my dear friend, she has been to the theatre to turn me out of my place.”