“We must first find out if it is good for you, uncle,” said Madame Cardinal, soothingly.  “Wait till the doctor comes.”

“Doctor!  I won’t have a doctor!” cried Toupillier; “and you, what are you doing here?  I don’t want anybody.”

“My good uncle, I came to know if you’d like something tasty.  I’ve got some nice fresh soles—­hey! a bit of fried sole, with a squeeze of lemon on it?”

“Your fish, indeed!” cried Toupillier; “all rotten!  That last you brought me, more than six weeks ago, it is there in the cupboard; you can take it away with you.”

“Heavens! how ungrateful sick men are!” whispered the widow Cardinal to Perrache.

Nevertheless, to exhibit solicitude, she arranged the pillow under the patient’s head, saying:—­

“There! uncle, don’t you feel better like that?”

“Let me alone!” shouted Toupillier, angrily; “I want no one here; I want wine; leave me in peace.”

“Don’t get angry, little uncle; we’ll fetch you some wine.”

“Number six wine, rue des Canettes,” cried the pauper.

“Yes, I know,” replied Madame Cardinal; “but let me count out my coppers.  I want to get something better for you than that kind of wine; for, don’t you see, an uncle, he’s a kind of father, and one shouldn’t mind what one does for him.”

So saying, she sat down, with her legs apart, on one of the dilapidated chairs, and poured into her apron the contents of her pockets, namely:  a knife, her snuff-box, two pawn-tickets, some crusts of bread, and a handful of copper, from which she extracted a few silver bits.

This exhibition, intended to prove her generous and eager devotion, had no result.  Toupillier seemed not to notice it.  Exhausted by the feverish energy with which he had demanded his favorite remedy, he made an effort to change his position, and, with his back turned to his two nurses, he again muttered:  “Wine! wine!” after which nothing more was heard of him but a stentorous breathing, that plainly showed the state of his lungs, which were beginning to congest.

“I suppose I must go and fetch his wine!” said the Cardinal, restoring to her pockets, with some ill-humor, the cargo she had just pulled out of them.

“If you don’t want to go—­” began Madame Perrache, always ready to offer her services.

The fishwife hesitated for a moment; then, reflecting that something might be got out of a conversation with the wine-merchant, and sure, moreover, that as long as Toupillier lay on his gold she could safely leave him alone with the portress, she said:—­

“Thank you, Madame Perrache, but I’d better make acquaintance with his trades-folk.”

Then, having spied behind the night-table a dirty bottle which might hold about two quarts,—­

“Did he say the rue des Canelles?” she inquired of the portress.

“Corner of the rue Guisarde,” replied Madame Perrache.  “Monsieur Legrelu, a tall, fine man with big whiskers and no hair.”  Then, lowering her voice, she added:  “His number-six wine, you know, is Roussillon, and the best, too.  However, the wine-merchant knows; it is enough if you tell him you have come from his customer, the pauper of Saint-Sulpice.”