and age.  Hygiene was represented by a jug of water with a towel laid upon it, and a bit of common soap.  Two ancient hats hung to their respective nails, near which also hung the self-same blue box-coat with three capes, in which the countess had always seen Schmucke when he came to give his lessons.  On the window-sill were three pots of flowers, German flowers, no doubt, and near them a stout holly-wood stick.

Though Marie’s sight and smell were disagreeably affected, Schmucke’s smile and glance disguised these abject miseries by rays of celestial light which actually illuminated their smoky tones and vivified the chaos.  The soul of this dear man, which saw and revealed so many things divine, shone like the sun.  His laugh, so frank, so guileless at seeing one of his Saint-Cecilias, shed sparkles of youth and gaiety and innocence about him.  The treasures he poured from the inner to the outer were like a mantle with which he covered his squalid life.  The most supercilious parvenu would have felt it ignoble to care for the frame in which this glorious old apostle of the musical religion lived and moved and had his being.

“Hey! by what good luck do I see you here, dear Madame la comtesse?” he said.  “Must I sing the canticle of Simeon at my age?” (This idea so tickled him that he laughed immoderately.) “Truly I’m ’en bonne fortune.’” (And again he laughed like a merry child.) “But, ah!” he said, changing to melancholy, “you come for the music, and not for a poor old man like me.  Yes, I know that; but come for what you will, I am yours, you know, body and soul and all I have!”

This was said in his unspeakable German accent, a rendition of which we spare the reader.

He took the countess’s hand, kissed it and left a tear there, for the worthy soul was always on the morrow of her benefit.  Then he seized a bit of chalk, jumped on a chair in front of the piano, and wrote upon the wall in big letters, with the rapidity of a young man, “February 17th, 1835.”  This pretty, artless action, done in such a passion of gratitude, touched the countess to tears.

“My sister will come too,” she said.

“The other, too!  When? when?  God grant it be before I die!”

“She will come to thank you for a great service I am now here to ask of you.”

“Quick! quick! tell me what it is,” cried Schmucke.  “What must I do? go to the devil?”

“Nothing more than write the words ‘Accepted for ten thousand francs,’ and sign your name on each of these papers,” she said, taking from her muff four notes prepared for her by Nathan.

“Hey! that’s soon done,” replied the German, with the docility of a lamb; “only I’m sure I don’t know where my pens and ink are—­ Get away from there, Meinherr Mirr!” he cried to the cat, which looked composedly at him.  “That’s my cat,” he said, showing him to the countess.  “That’s the poor animal that lives with poor Schmucke.  Hasn’t he fine fur?”