“Oh! you can just fetch a notary yourself, and have your will made as you please,” cried La Cibot, with tears in her eyes.  “My poor Cibot is dying, and it is no time to leave him.  I would give all the Ponses in the world to save Cibot, that has never given me an ounce of unhappiness in these thirty years since we were married.”

And in she went, leaving Schmucke in confusion.

“Is M. Pons really seriously ill, sir?” asked the first-floor lodger, one Jolivard, a clerk in the registrar’s office at the Palais de Justice.

“He nearly died chust now,” said Schmucke, with deep sorrow in his voice.

“M.  Trognon lives near by in the Rue Saint-Louis,” said M. Jolivard, “he is the notary of the quarter.”

“Would you like me to go for him?” asked Remonencq.

“I should pe fery glad,” said Schmucke; “for gif Montame Zipod cannot pe mit mine vriend, I shall not vish to leaf him in der shtate he is in—­”

“Mme. Cibot told us that he was going out of his mind,” resumed Jolivard.

“Bons! out off his mind!” cried Schmucke, terror-stricken by the idea.  “Nefer vas he so clear in der head . . . dat is chust der reason vy I am anxious for him.”

The little group of persons listened to the conversation with a very natural curiosity, which stamped the scene upon their memories.  Schmucke did not know Fraisier, and could not note his satanic countenance and glittering eyes.  But two words whispered by Fraisier in La Cibot’s ear had prompted a daring piece of acting, somewhat beyond La Cibot’s range, it may be, though she played her part throughout in a masterly style.  To make others believe that the dying man was out of his mind—­it was the very corner-stone of the edifice reared by the petty lawyer.  The morning’s incident had done Fraisier good service; but for him, La Cibot in her trouble might have fallen into the snare innocently spread by Schmucke, when he asked her to send back the person sent by the family.

Remonencq saw Dr. Poulain coming towards them, and asked no better than to vanish.  The fact was that for the last ten days the Auvergnat had been playing Providence in a manner singularly displeasing to Justice, which claims the monopoly of that part.  He had made up his mind to rid himself at all costs of the one obstacle in his way to happiness, and happiness for him meant capital trebled and marriage with the irresistibly charming portress.  He had watched the little tailor drinking his herb-tea, and a thought struck him.  He would convert the ailment into mortal sickness; his stock of old metals supplied him with the means.

One morning as he leaned against the door-post, smoking his pipe and dreaming of that fine shop on the Boulevard de la Madeleine where Mme. Cibot, gorgeously arrayed, should some day sit enthroned, his eyes fell upon a copper disc, about the size of a five-franc piece, covered thickly with verdigris.  The economical idea of using Cibot’s medicine to clean the disc immediately occurred to him.  He fastened the thing in a bit of twine, and came over every morning to inquire for tidings of his friend the tailor, timing his visit during La Cibot’s visit to her gentlemen upstairs.  He dropped the disc into the tumbler, allowed it to steep there while he talked, and drew it out again by the string when he went away.