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"Do as you vill " he answered mechanically. The innocent creature for the first time in his life had seen a man die, and that man was Pons, his only friend, the one human being who understood him and loved him. "I will go and ask Mme. Cibot where the sheets are kept," said La Sauvage. "A truckle-bed will be wanted for the person to sleep upon," Mme. Cantinet came to tell Schmucke.
I say, Cantinet," continued the doctor, beckoning to the beadle, "just go and ask your wife if she will nurse M. Pons, and look after M. Schmucke, and take Mme. Cibot's place for a day or two.... Even without the quarrel, Mme. Cibot would still require a substitute. Mme. Cantinet is honest," added the doctor, turning to M. Duplanty.
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.
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.
Cantinet saw no prospect but want in her old age, and yet she had brought her husband twelve thousand francs, she said. The tale of her woes related for the hundredth time suggested an idea to Dr. Poulain. Once introduce her into the old bachelor's quarters, and it would be easy by her means to establish Mme. Sauvage there as working housekeeper. It was quite impossible to present Mme.
Cantinet. La Sauvage dashed down in such headlong haste that the stairs trembled beneath her tread. "Monsieur!" she called, and drew him aside a few paces to point out Topinard. Topinard was just going away, proud at heart to have made some return already to the man who had done him so many kindnesses.
"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 senior, much addicted to spirituous liquors and idleness, had, in fact, been driven to retire from business by those two failings.
Some irresistible force drew him to Pons' chamber, but the sight of it was more than the poor man could bear; he shrank away and sat down in the dining-room, where Mme. Sauvage was busy making breakfast ready. Schmucke drew his chair to the table, but he could eat nothing. A sudden, somewhat sharp ringing of the door-bell rang through the house, and Mme. Cantinet and Mme.
La Sauvage made out a preliminary statement accounting for three hundred and sixty francs, and then proceeded to prepare a dinner for four persons. And what a dinner! At nine o'clock the priest, sent by the curate to watch by the dead, came in with Cantinet, who brought four tall wax candles and some tapers.
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