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Updated: June 17, 2025
Neither could repress a smile: these good souls understood one another perfectly, and Ramin saw that this was not the Excellent Opportunity he desired, and departed. The next day Ramin sent a neighboring medical man, and heard it was his opinion that if Bonelle held on for three months longer, it would be a miracle. Delightful news!
"What!" exclaimed Monsieur Ramin, in a loud key. Catharine repeated her statement, to which her master listened in total silence. "Well!" he said at length, in his most careless tones, "what about the old fellow?" and he once more resumed his triple occupation of reading, eating, and watching.
Ramin threw himself back in his chair, and laughed blandly, as much as to say, "Can you suspect me?" "I have no shop now out of which you can wheedle me," continued the old man; "and surely you are not such a fool as to come to me for money." "Money!" repeated the draper, as if his host had mentioned something he never dreamt of. "Oh, no!"
With this Bonelle opened his door, shut it, and disappeared. Ramin was transfixed on the stairs; petrified with intense disappointment, and a powerful sense of having been duped. When he was discovered, he stared vacantly, and raved about an Excellent Opportunity of taking his revenge.
"Then you think he really is dying," asked Ramin; and, in spite of the melancholy accent he endeavored to assume, there was something so peculiar in his tone, that the priest looked at him very fixedly as he slowly replied, "Yes, air, I think he is."
Those who sought an explanation from the new mercer were still more unsuccessful. "My good old master," he said in his jovial way, "felt in need of repose, and so I obligingly relieved him of all business and botheration." Years passed away; Ramin prospered, and neither thought nor heard of his "good old master." The house, of which he tenanted the lower portion, was offered for sale.
He had long coveted it, and had almost concluded an agreement with the actual owner, when Monsieur Bonelle unexpectedly stepped in at the eleventh hour, and by offering a trifle more secured the bargain. The rage and mortification of Monsieur Ramin were extreme.
"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.
"To meet that difficulty," quickly replied the mercer, "we can reduce the interest." "But I must have high interest," placidly returned Monsieur Bonelle. Ramin, on hearing this, burst into a loud fit of laughter, called Monsieur Bonelle a sly old fox, gave him a poke in the ribs, which made the old man cough for five minutes, and then proposed that they should talk it over some other day.
As Ramin unlocked the door to leave, he found old Marguerite, who had been listening all the time, ready to assail him with a torrent of whispered abuse for duping her "poor dear innocent old master into such a bargain." The mercer bore it all very patiently: he could make all allowances for her excited feelings, and only rubbed his hands and bade her a jovial good evening.
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