“Yes, my good Mme. Polge, what is to become of us?  Things cannot go on much longer as they are.  Jenkins will not give way; the children are as obstinate as mules.  There is no denying it, they will all slip through our fingers.  There is the little Wallachian—­I mark the king, Mme. Polge—­who may die from one moment to another.  Just think, the poor little chap for the last three days has had nothing in his stomach.  It is useless for Jenkins to talk.  You cannot improve children like snails by making them go hungry.  It is disheartening all the same not to be able to save one of them.  The infirmary is full.  It is really a wretched outlook.  Forty and bezique.”

A double ring at the entrance gate interrupted his monologue.  The omnibus was returning from the railway station and its wheels were grinding on the sand in an unusual manner.

“What an astonishing thing,” remarked Pondevez, “the conveyance is not empty.”

Indeed it did draw up at the foot of the steps with a certain pride, and the man who got out of it sprang up the staircase at a bound.  He was a courier from Jenkins bearing a great piece of news.  The doctor would arrive in two hours to visit the Home, accompanied by the Nabob and a gentleman from the Tuileries.  He urgently enjoined that everything should be ready for their reception.  The thing had been decided at such short notice that he had not had the time to write; but he counted on M. Pondevez to do all that was necessary.

“That is good!—­necessary!” murmured Pondevez in complete dismay.  The situation was critical.  This important visit was occurring at the worst possible moment, just as the system had utterly broken down.  The poor Pompon, exceedingly perplexed, tugged at his beard, thoughtfully gnawing wisps of it.

“Come,” said he suddenly to Mme. Polge, whose long face had grown still longer between her ringlets, “we have only one course to take.  We must remove the infirmary and carry all the sick into the dormitory.  They will be neither better nor worse for passing another half-day there.  As for those with the rash, we will put them out of the way in some corner.  They are too ugly, they must not be seen.  Come along, you up there!  I want every one on the bridge.”

The dinner-bell being violently rung, immediately hurried steps are heard.  Seamstresses, infirmary-nurses, servants, goatherds, issue from all directions, running, jostling each other across the court-yards.  Others fly about, cries, calls; but that which dominates is the noise of a mighty cleansing, a streaming of water as though Bethlehem had been suddenly attacked by fire.  And those groanings of sick children snatched from the warmth of their beds, all those little screaming bundles carried across the damp park, their coverings fluttering through the branches, powerfully complete the impression of a fire.  At the end of two hours, thanks to a prodigious activity, the house is ready from top to bottom for the visit which it is about to receive, all the staff at their posts, the stove lighted, the goats picturesquely sprinkled over the park.  Mme. Polge has donned her green silk dress, the director a costume somewhat less neglige than usual, but of which the simplicity excluded all idea of premeditation.  The Departmental Secretary may come.