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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 looked round the room as a thief looks in search of possible hiding-places for money; then she went straight to Pons' chest, opened the first drawer, saw the bag in which Schmucke had put the rest of the money after the sale of the pictures, and held it up before him. He nodded mechanically. "Here is money, child," said La Sauvage, turning to Mme. Cantinet.
The "nutcrackers," punctual in their attendance at Saint-Francois on Sundays and saints'-days, were on friendly terms with the beadle and the lowest ecclesiastical rank and file, commonly called in Paris le bas clerge, to whom the devout usually give little presents from time to time. Mme. Cantinet therefore knew Schmucke almost as well as Schmucke knew her. And Mme.
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.
"Kind regards to all at home," said La Sauvage, "and my compliments to your missus, if you are married, mister. . . . That was all I wanted to know." "Why, what is the matter, dear?" asked Mme. Cantinet, coming out. "This, child stop here and look after the dinner while I run round to speak to monsieur." "He is down below, talking with poor Mme. Cibot, that is crying her eyes out," said Mme.
"And what is more, sir, I must have coal and firing if I am to get the dinner ready," echoed La Sauvage, "and not a thing can I find. Not that there is anything so very surprising in that, as La Cibot used to do everything for you " Schmucke lay at the feet of the dead; he heard nothing, knew nothing, saw nothing. Mme. Cantinet pointed to him. "My dear woman, you would not believe me," she said.
Cantinet by way of introduction. "She once was cook to a bishop; she is honesty itself; she will do the cooking." "Oh! you may talk out loud," wheezed the stalwart dame. "The poor gentleman is dead. . . . He has just gone." A shrill cry broke from Schmucke. He felt Pons' cold hand stiffening in his, and sat staring into his friend's eyes; the look in them would have driven him mad, if Mme.
Remonencq walked behind his victim's coffin. People condoled with him on the loss of his neighbor. The two funerals reached the church. Cantinet and the doorkeeper saw that no beggars troubled Schmucke.
" 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 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.
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