“Mme. Cibot,” said the patient, “be so kind as to leave us; we want to talk about the theatre and my post as conductor, with this lady.  Schmucke, will you go to the door with Mme. Cibot?”

At a sign from Pons, Schmucke saw Mme. Cibot out at the door, and drew the bolts.

“Ah, that blackguard of a German!  Is he spoiled, too?” La Cibot said to herself as she heard the significant sounds.  “That is M. Pons’ doing; he taught him those disgusting tricks. . . .  But you shall pay for this, my dears,” she thought as she went down stairs.  “Pooh! if that tight-rope dancer tells him about the thousand francs, I shall say that it is a farce.

She seated herself by Cibot’s pillow.  Cibot complained of a burning sensation in the stomach.  Remonencq had called in and given him a draught while his wife was upstairs.

As soon as Schmucke had dismissed La Cibot, Pons turned to the ballet-girl.

“Dear child, I can trust no one else to find me a notary, an honest man, and send him here to make my will to-morrow morning at half-past nine precisely.  I want to leave all that I have to Schmucke.  If he is persecuted, poor German that he is, I shall reckon upon the notary; the notary must defend him.  And for that reason I must have a wealthy notary, highly thought of, a man above the temptations to which pettifogging lawyers yield.  He must succor my poor friend.  I cannot trust Berthier, Cardot’s successor.  And you know so many people—­”

“Oh!  I have the very man for you,” Heloise broke in; “there is the notary that acts for Florine and the Comtesse du Bruel, Leopold Hannequin, a virtuous man that does not know what a lorette is!  He is a sort of chance-come father—­a good soul that will not let you play ducks and drakes with your earnings; I call him Le Pere aux Rats, because he instils economical notions into the minds of all my friends.  In the first place, my dear fellow, he has a private income of sixty thousand francs; and he is a notary of the real old sort, a notary while he walks or sleeps; his children must be little notaries and notaresses.  He is a heavy, pedantic creature, and that’s the truth; but on his own ground, he is not the man to flinch before any power in creation. . . .  No woman ever got money out of him; he is a fossil pater-familias, his wife worships him, and does not deceive him, although she is a notary’s wife.—­What more do you want? as a notary he has not his match in Paris.  He is in the patriarchal style; not queer and amusing, as Cardot used to be with Malaga; but he will never decamp like little What’s-his-name that lived with Antonia.  So I will send round my man to-morrow morning at eight o’clock. . . .  You may sleep in peace.  And I hope, in the first place, that you will get better, and make charming music for us again; and yet, after all, you see, life is very dreary—­managers chisel you, and kings mizzle and ministers fizzle and rich fold economizzle.—­Artists have nothing left here” (tapping her breast)—­“it is a time to die in.  Good-bye, old boy.”