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Updated: July 19, 2025
I am an old friend, a very old friend of your excellent master; I have come to see good Monsieur Bonelle in his present affliction." Marguerite did not answer, but allowed him to enter, and closed the door behind him.
Some said that he had detected Monsieur Bonelle in frauds which he threatened to expose unless the business were given up to him as the price of his silence; others averred, that having drawn a prize in the lottery, he had resolved to set up a fierce opposition over the way, and that Monsieur Bonelle, having obtained a hint of his intentions, had thought it most prudent to accept the trifling sum his clerk offered, and avoid a ruinous competition.
"Catharine," said he, dryly, "you will have the goodness, in the first place, not to make impertinent remarks: in the second place, you will oblige me by going up stairs to inquire after the health of Monsieur Bonelle, and say that I sent you." Catharine grumbled, and obeyed.
The wonderful cure was the talk of the neighborhood, whenever Monsieur Bonelle appeared in the streets, jauntily flourishing his cane.
"Will you pay him?" interrogated Bonelle, sharply. "Most willingly," replied Ramin, with an eagerness that made the old man smile. "As to the annuity, since the subject annoys you, we will talk of it some other time." "After you have heard the doctor's report," sneered Bonelle. The mercer gave him a stealthy glance, which the old man's keen look immediately detected.
"Ah!" was all Monsieur Ramin said; and as the clergyman had now relaxed his hold of the button, Ramin passed in spite of the remonstrances of Marguerite, who rushed after the priest. He found Monsieur Bonelle in bed and in a towering rage. "Oh! Ramin, my friend," he groaned, "never take a housekeeper, and never let her know you have any property.
"You may rely on it, you would preserve your health better if you had not the trouble of these vexatious lodgers. Have you thought about the life annuity?" said Ramin as carelessly as he could, considering how near the matter was to his hopes and wishes. "Why, I have scruples," returned Bonelle, coughing. "I do not wish to take you in. My longevity would be the ruin of you."
Of one part of this torment Ramin might get rid, by giving his old master notice to quit, and no longer having him in his house. But this he cannot do; he has a secret fear that Bonelle would take some Excellent Opportunity of dying without his knowledge, and giving some other person an Excellent Opportunity of persecuting him, and receiving the money in his stead.
He asked me if you were not of a long-lived race." "That is as people may judge," replied Monsieur Bonelle. "All I can say is, that my grandfather died at ninety, and my father at eighty-six." "The doctor owned that you had a wonderfully strong constitution." "Who said I hadn't?" exclaimed the invalid feebly.
"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."
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