“But, my dear friend,” urged Monsieur Ramin in a tone of feeling remonstrance, “there is such a thing as being too sharp, too acute.  How can you expect that I shall give you more when your constitution is so good, and you are to be such a long liver?”

“Yes, but I may be carried off one of these days,” quietly observed the old man, evidently wishing to turn the chance of his own death to account.

“Indeed, and I hope so,” muttered the mercer, who was getting very ill-tempered.

“You see,” soothingly continued Bonelle, “you are so good a man of business, Ramin, that you will double the actual value of the house in no time.  I am a quiet, easy person, indifferent to money; otherwise this house would now bring me in eight thousand at the very least.”

“Eight thousand!” indignantly exclaimed the mercer.  “Monsieur Bonelle, you have no conscience.  Come now, my dear friend, do be reasonable.  Six thousand francs a year (I don’t mind saying six) is really a very handsome income for a man of your quiet habits.  Come, be reasonable.”  But Monsieur Bonelle turned a deaf ear to reason, and closed his eyes once more.  What between opening and shutting them for the next quarter of an hour, he at length induced Monsieur Ramin to offer him seven thousand francs.

“Very well, Ramin, agreed,” he quietly said; “you have made an unconscionable bargain.”  To this succeeded a violent fit of coughing.

As Ramin unlocked the door to leave, he found old Marguerite, who had been listening all the time, ready to assail him with a torrent of whispered abuse for duping her “poor dear innocent old master into such a bargain.”  The mercer bore it all very patiently:  he could make all allowances for her excited feelings, and only rubbed his hands and bade her a jovial good evening.

The agreement was signed on the following day, to the indignation of old Marguerite, and the mutual satisfaction of the parties concerned.

Every one admired the luck and shrewdness of Ramin, for the old man every day was reported worse; and it was clear to all that the first quarter of the annuity would never be paid.  Marguerite, in her wrath, told the story as a grievance to every one; people listened, shook their heads, and pronounced Monsieur Ramin to be a deuced clever fellow.

A month elapsed.  As Ramin was coming down one morning from the attics, where he had been giving notice to a poor widow who had failed in paying her rent, he heard a light step on the stairs.  Presently a sprightly gentleman, in buoyant health and spirits, wearing the form of Monsieur Bonelle, appeared.  Ramin stood aghast.

“Well, Ramin,” gaily said the old man, “how are you getting on?  Have you been tormenting the poor widow up stairs?  Why, man, we must live and let live!”

“Monsieur Bonelle,” said the mercer, in a hollow tone; “may I ask where are your rheumatics?”

“Gone, my dear friend,—­gone.”