As they became aware of Mme. Cibot’s full value, they gave her outspoken praises, and thanks, and little presents which strengthened the bonds of the domestic alliance.  Mme. Cibot a thousand times preferred appreciation to money payments; it is a well-known fact that the sense that one is appreciated makes up for a deficiency in wages.  And Cibot did all that he could for his wife’s two gentlemen, and ran errands and did repairs at half-price for them.

The second year brought a new element into the friendship between the lodge and the second floor, and Schmucke concluded a bargain which satisfied his indolence and desire for a life without cares.  For thirty sous per day, or forty-five francs per month, Mme. Cibot undertook to provide Schmucke with breakfast and dinner; and Pons, finding his friend’s breakfast very much to his mind, concluded a separate treaty for that meal only at the rate of eighteen francs.  This arrangement, which added nearly ninety francs every month to the takings of the porter and his wife, made two inviolable beings of the lodgers; they became angels, cherubs, divinities.  It is very doubtful whether the King of the French, who is supposed to understand economy, is as well served as the pair of nutcrackers used to be in those days.

For them the milk issued pure from the can; they enjoyed a free perusal of all the morning papers taken by other lodgers, later risers, who were told, if need be, that the newspapers had not come yet.  Mme. Cibot, moreover, kept their clothes, their rooms, and the landing as clean as a Flemish interior.  As for Schmucke, he enjoyed unhoped-for happiness; Mme. Cibot had made life easy for him; he paid her about six francs a month, and she took charge of his linen, washing, and mending.  Altogether, his expenses amounted to sixty-six francs per month (for he spent fifteen francs on tobacco), and sixty-six francs multiplied by twelve produces the sum total of seven hundred and ninety-two francs.  Add two hundred and twenty francs for rent, rates, and taxes, and you have a thousand and twelve francs.  Cibot was Schmucke’s tailor; his clothes cost him on average a hundred and fifty francs, which further swells the total to the sum of twelve hundred.  On twelve hundred francs per annum this profound philosopher lived.  How many people in Europe, whose one thought it is to come to Paris and live there, will be agreeably surprised to learn that you may exist in comfort upon an income of twelve hundred francs in the Rue de Normandie in the Marais, under the wing of a Mme. Cibot.

Mme. Cibot, to resume the story, was amazed beyond expression to see Pons, good man, return at five o’clock in the evening.  Such a thing had never happened before; and not only so, but “her gentleman” had given her no greeting—­had not so much as seen her!

“Well, well, Cibot,” said she to her spouse, “M.  Pons has come in for a million, or gone out of his mind!”