“Ah, doctor, I have had a hard time of it; but you were right, I am doing better.  Thank you, my good Abbe; I was wondering what had become of Schmucke—­”

“Schmucke has had nothing to eat since yesterday evening, and now it is four o’clock!  You have no one with you now and it would be wise to send for Mme. Cibot.”

“She is capable of anything!” said Pons, without attempting to conceal all his abhorrence at the sound of her name.  “It is true, Schmucke ought to have some trustworthy person.”

“M.  Duplanty and I have been thinking about you both—­”

“Ah! thank you, I had not thought of that.”

“—­And M. Duplanty suggests that you should have Mme. Cantinet—­”

“Oh!  Mme. Cantinet who lets the chairs!” exclaimed Pons.  “Yes, she is an excellent creature.”

“She has no liking for Mme. Cibot,” continued the doctor, “and she would take good care of M. Schmucke—­”

“Send her to me, M. Duplanty . . . send her and her husband too.  I shall be easy.  Nothing will be stolen here.”

Schmucke had taken Pons’ hand again, and held it joyously in his own.  Pons was almost well again, he thought.

“Let us go, Monsieur l’Abbe,” said the doctor.  “I will send Mme. Cantinet round at once.  I see how it is.  She perhaps may not find M. Pons alive.”

While the Abbe Duplanty was persuading Pons to engage Mme. Cantinet as his nurse, Fraisier had sent for her.  He had plied the beadle’s wife with sophistical reasoning and subtlety.  It was difficult to resist his corrupting influence.  And as for Mme. Cantinet—­a lean, sallow woman, with large teeth and thin lips—­her intelligence, as so often happens with women of the people, had been blunted by a hard life, till she had come to look upon the slenderest daily wage as prosperity.  She soon consented to take Mme. Sauvage with her as general servant.

Mme. Sauvage had had her instructions already.  She had undertaken to weave a web of iron wire about the two musicians, and to watch them as a spider watches a fly caught in the toils; and her reward was to be a tobacconist’s license.  Fraisier had found a convenient opportunity of getting rid of his so-called foster-mother, while he posted her as a detective and policeman to supervise Mme. Cantinet.  As there was a servant’s bedroom and a little kitchen included in the apartment, La Sauvage could sleep on a truckle-bed and cook for the German.  Dr. Poulain came with the two women just as Pons drew his last breath.  Schmucke was sitting beside his friend, all unconscious of the crisis, holding the hand that slowly grew colder in his grasp.  He signed to Mme. Cantinet to be silent; but Mme. Sauvage’s soldierly figure surprised him so much that he started in spite of himself, a kind of homage to which the virago was quite accustomed.

“M.  Duplanty answers for this lady,” whispered Mme. Cantinet by way of introduction.  “She once was cook to a bishop; she is honesty itself; she will do the cooking.”