“Ramin,” groaned the old man, looking inquiringly into his visitor’s face, “you are again going to talk to me about that annuity—­I know you are!”

“My excellent friend, it is merely to deliver you from a painful position.”

“I am sure, Ramin, you think in your soul I am dying,” whimpered Monsieur Bonelle.

“Absurd, my dear sir.  Dying?  I will prove to you that you have never been in better health.  In the first place you feel no pain.”

“Excepting from rheumatism,” groaned Monsieur Bonelle.

“Rheumatism! who ever died of rheumatism? and if that be all—­”

“No, it is not all,” interrupted the old man with great irritability; “what would you say to the gout getting higher and higher up every day?”

“The gout is rather disagreeable, but if there is nothing else—­”

“Yes, there is something else,” sharply said Monsieur Bonelle.  “There is an asthma that will scarcely let me breathe, and a racking pain in my head that does not allow me a moment’s ease.  But if you think I am dying, Ramin, you are quite mistaken.”

“No doubt, my dear friend, no doubt; but in the meanwhile suppose we talk of this annuity.  Shall we say one thousand francs a year.”

“What!” asked Bonelle, looking at him very fixedly.

“My dear friend, I mistook; I meant two thousand francs per annum,” hurriedly rejoined Ramin.

Monsieur Bonelle closed his eyes, and appeared to fall into a gentle slumber.  The mercer coughed; the sick man never moved.

“Monsieur Bonelle.”

No reply.

“My excellent friend.”

Utter silence.

“Are you asleep?”

A long pause.

“Well, then, what do you say to three thousand?”

Monsieur Bonelle opened his eyes.

“Ramin,” said he, sententiously, “you are a fool; the house brings me in four thousand as it is.”

This was quite false, and the mercer knew it; but he had his own reasons for wishing to seem to believe it true.

“Good Heavens!” said he, with an air of great innocence, “who could have thought it, and the lodgers constantly running away.  Four thousand?  Well, then, you shall have four thousand.”

Monsieur Bonelle shut his eyes once more, and murmured “The mere rental—­nonsense!” He then folded his hands on his breast, and appeared to compose himself to sleep.

“Oh, what a sharp man of business he is!” Ramin said, admiringly:  but for once omnipotent flattery failed in its effect:  “So acute!” continued he, with a stealthy glance at the old man, who remained perfectly unmoved.

“I see you will insist upon making it the other five hundred francs.”

Monsieur Ramin said this as if five thousand five hundred francs had already been mentioned, and was the very summit of Monsieur Bonelle’s ambition.  But the ruse failed in its effect; the sick man never so much as stirred.