“There, sonny! M. Schmucke and I will sit up with you of nights. A prince won’t be no better nursed... and besides, you needn’t refuse yourself nothing that’s necessary, you can afford it.--I have just been talking things over with Cibot, for what would he do without me, poor dear?--Well, and I talked him round; we are both so fond of you, that he will let me stop up with you of a night. And that is a good deal to ask of a man like him, for he is as fond of me as ever he was the day we were married. I don’t know how it is. It is the lodge, you see; we are always there together! Don’t you throw off the things like that!” she cried, making a dash for the bedhead to draw the coverlet over Pons’ chest. “If you are not good, and don’t do just as Dr. Poulain says--and Dr. Poulain is the image of Providence on earth--I will have no more to do with you. You must do as I tell you--” “Yes, Montame Zipod, he vill do vat you dell him,” put in Schmucke; “he vants to lif for his boor friend Schmucke’s sake, I’ll pe pound.” “And of all things, don’t fidget yourself,” continued La Cibot, “for your illness makes you quite bad enough without your making it worse for want of patience. God sends us our troubles, my dear good gentlemen; He punishes us for our sins. Haven’t you nothing to reproach yourself with? some poor little bit of a fault or other?” The invalid shook his head. “Oh! go on! You were young once, you had your fling, there is some love-child of yours somewhere--cold, and starving, and homeless.... What monsters men are! Their love doesn’t last only for a day, and then in a jiffy they forget, they don’t so much as think of the child at the breast for months.... Poor women!” “But no one has ever loved me except Schmucke and my mother,” poor Pons broke in sadly. “Oh! come, you aren’t no saint! You were young in your time, and a fine-looking young fellow you must have been at twenty. I should have fallen in love with you myself, so nice as you are--” “I always was as ugly as a toad,” Pons put in desperately. “You say that because you are modest; nobody can’t say that you aren’t modest.” “My dear Mme. Cibot, _no_, I tell you. I always was ugly, and I never was loved in my life.” “You, indeed!” cried the portress. “You want to make me believe at this time of day that you are as innocent as a young maid at your time of life. Tell that to your granny! A musician at a theatre too! Why, if a woman told me that, I wouldn’t believe her.” “Montame Zipod, you irritate him!” cried Schmucke, seeing that Pons was writhing under the bedclothes.