Poor Gérard could stand it no longer; the philter was working; colic and headache appeared. The maid brought Madame Dubelair her mirror. The coquette looked at herself and began to shriek horribly; she broke the mirror, she had an attack of hysterics, and her poor lover implored Fifine to give him the key to his mistress’s closet. The girl, who was mischievous and sly, like most soubrettes, roared with laughter when she saw Monsieur Gérard’s plight; and to make the confusion complete, Madame Rose rushed in, crying that she was betrayed, dishonored; that her husband was a monster who gave her no children but had just debauched his concierge. Our amorous philter had raised the deuce with Monsieur Rose; the poor man had gone home, hoping to find his wife there; she had hidden in order to make him jealous, and the dear husband, finding nobody but his concierge at hand, had made her the victim of the flames that consumed him. The cries of Madame Rose, who was frantic with rage, of the concierge, who pretended to be, of Madame Dubelair, who was trying to tear off her nose, of Monsieur Gérard, who was holding his stomach, and of Monsieur Rose, who was weeping over his own perversity, soon attracted the whole quarter. The neighbors hurried to the spot, asked questions, pushed and crowded, gave Madame Rose orange-flower water, the concierge cologne, Madame Dubelair ether, Monsieur Gérard an enema, and Monsieur Rose extract of water lily. When the first outcries had subsided, an attempt was made to ascertain the cause of so many untoward events. It was clear that there must be some witchcraft underneath. Madame Dubelair swore that she had never in her whole life had a pimple on her nose or anywhere else, Monsieur Gérard never ate too much, and Madame Rose, despite her wrath, admitted that her husband was not the man to pinch a woman’s knee unless he had been made tipsy. Thus these extraordinary events must have had some hidden cause. They remembered the philters; they confided in one another; and the result was that the little hunchback was voted a sorcerer, a magician, a charlatan, an impostor worthy of hell-fire. But, pending the time when he should go to hell, they considered that it was necessary to put him in prison, in order to prevent him from repeating his infamous incantations.