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"I will go further," said the doctor; "my professional conscience will not permit me to speak to M. Pons of his death. In the first place, he is not so dangerously ill that there is any need to speak of it, and in the second, such talk coming from me might give a shock to the system that would do him real harm, and then his illness might terminate fatally "
No one cared to know the composer's name; like occupants of the baignoires, lost to view of the house, to gain a view of the stage, Pons and Schmucke eclipsed themselves by their success.
At midnight poor Schmucke sat in his easy-chair, watching with a breaking heart that shrinking of the features that comes with death; Pons looked so worn out with the day's exertions, that death seemed very near. Presently Pons spoke. "I have just enough strength, I think, to last till to-morrow night," he said philosophically. "To-morrow night the death agony will begin; poor Schmucke!
There were days when Pons, thinking upon Count Popinot's cook, would sigh aloud, "Ah, Sophie!" Any passer-by hearing the exclamation might have thought that the old man referred to a lost mistress; but his fancy dwelt upon something rarer, on a fat Rhine carp with a sauce, thin in the sauce-boat, creamy upon the palate, a sauce that deserved the Montyon prize!
The three who had done Pons to death were still on the landing; La Cibot told them to wait. She heard Fraisier say to Magus: "Let me have it in writing, and sign it, both of you. Undertake to pay nine hundred thousand francs in cash for M. Pons' collection, and we will see about putting you in the way of making a handsome profit."
"Dese men haf tiger faces. . . . I shall send somebody to vetch mein bits of dings." "Where are you going, sir?" "Vere it shall blease Gott," returned Pons' universal legatee with supreme indifference. "Send me word," said Villemot. Fraisier turned to the head-clerk. "Go after him," he whispered. Mme.
Pons had been wont to give him a five-franc piece once a month, knowing that he had a wife and family. "Why, I have come to ask news of M. Pons every morning, sir." "Efery morning! boor Dobinard!" and Schmucke squeezed the man's hand. "But they took me for a relation, no doubt, and did not like my visits at all.
Pons shrugged his shoulders. "Has he not been waiting two hours as it is?" "Why didn't you call me?" He regarded me with a thoughtful, censorious eye. "And you rolling to bed and shouting like chanticleer, 'Sing cucu, sing cucu, cucu nu nu cucu, sing cucu, sing cucu, sing cucu, sing cucu." He mocked me with the senseless refrain in an ear-jangling falsetto.
Cibot to her husband, "for here is M. Schmucke's dinner all ready for him." As she spoke she covered the deep earthenware dish with a plate; and, notwithstanding her age, she climbed the stair and reached the door before Schmucke opened it to Pons. "Vat is de matter mit you, mein goot friend?" asked the German, scared by the expression of Pons' face.
Then the priest settled himself comfortably in the easy-chair and read his prayers while Schmucke, kneeling beside the couch, besought God to work a miracle and unite him to Pons, so that they might be buried in the same grave; and Mme. Cantinet went on her way to the Temple to buy a pallet and complete bedding for Mme. Sauvage. The twelve hundred and fifty francs were regarded as plunder.
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