"I tell you I have just seen it, and read with my own eyes what I described to you. 'Well,' said I to myself, 'this is droll enough! M. Pipelet is a shoemaker by trade, but here he writes up publicly that he is a dealer in friendship along with a M. Cabrion! What can all this mean? There is something meant more than meets the eye!' Still, as the board further directed all persons desirous of knowing more to apply to the porter, 'Oh,' thinks I, 'Madame Pipelet can explain all this to me!' But, look, look!" cried Madame Seraphin, suddenly breaking off in her remarks. "Your husband is taken ill! Mind what you are about, or he will fall backwards!" Madame Pipelet flew to her afflicted partner, and was just in time to receive him, half fainting, in her arms. The last blow had been too overwhelming,--the man in the bell-crowned hat had but just strength left to murmur forth, "The scoundrel has, then, publicly placarded me!" "I told you, Madame Seraphin, that poor Alfred was suffering dreadful with the cramp in his stomach, besides being worried to death by a crack-brained vagabond, who is at him night and day: he'll be the death of my poor old duck at last. Never mind, darling, I've got a nice little drop of aniseed to give you; so drink it, and see if you can't shake your old feathers and be yourself again!" Thanks to the timely application of Madame Pipelet's infallible remedy, Alfred gradually recovered his senses; but, alas, scarcely was he restored to full consciousness ere he was subjected to another and equally cruel trial of his feelings! An individual of middle age, respectably dressed, and possessing a countenance so simple, or rather so silly, as to render it impossible to suspect him of any malice prepense or intended irony, opened the upper and glazed part of the lodge door, saying, with the most genuine air of mystification: "I have just read on a small board placed over the door, at the entrance to the alley, the following words: 'Pipelet and Cabrion, dealers in Friendship and similar Articles. Inquire of the Porter.' Will you oblige me by explaining the meaning of those words, if you are, as I presume you to be, the porter in question?" "The meaning!" exclaimed M. Pipelet, in a voice of thunder, and giving vent at length to his so long restrained indignation; "the meaning is simply, sir-r-r, that M. Cabrion is an infamous scoundrel,--an impostor!" The simple-looking interrogator drew back, in dread of the consequences that might follow this sudden and furious burst of wrath, while, wrought up to a state of fury, Alfred leaned over the half door of the lodge, his glaring eyeballs and clenched hands indicating the intensity of his feelings; while the figures of Madame Seraphin and Anastasie were dimly revealed amid the murky shades of the small room.