"And the money?" the ex-official went on. "Did Schleifmann tell you that, too? Do you know that I owe one hundred and ten thousand francs. A nice thing for a Raindal!... To die leaving one hundred and ten thousand francs' debts! If poor Father had seen such a thing!" "Hush, reassure yourself!" the master said. "First of all, you seem to me on the road to recovery...." In reply Cyprien touched his dead shoulder. "As to your debts!" the master added. "I will make them my affair. I have saved ninety thousand francs and I give them up to you without much regret.... My salary and what I get for my books and articles will amply suffice for all of us to live on and even to pay, a little each year, the unpaid balance.... Well, I hope that your mind is relieved." "Yes, thanks! I thank you!" Cyprien replied distractedly, the leeches and the mustard plasters pricking him terribly. Then he forced himself to add: "Just the same, poor Eusèbe.... I have very often teased you, worried you! How many jokes have I not played upon you? But if I had been told that I would ruin you one day, I, Uncle Cyprien, with my hundred francs a month, my board at the brasserie and my garret at five hundred francs a year, well!... No, No! It is incredible! To think that all this happened because, because...." His impotent thoughts wandered through the complications of his adventure; then he went on after a pause: "Yes, because ... because, to annoy you, I wished to go to that Mme. Rhâm-Bâhan and there met the ... the marquis ... the marquis de...." He moved his eyelids, but a weight seemed to dominate them. He fell asleep again, with an uneven breathing, sometimes imperceptible, sometimes snoring and galloping like the wind on a log fire. His cheeks became purple. His throat rattled with a scraping noise. Congestion was beginning. On his return, Dr. Chesnard assumed a face of ill-omen. He made a new prescription and ordered more violent revulsives. As he was leaving, M. Raindal suggested for the next day a consultation with Dr. Gombauld, his colleague of the Academy of Medicine. "Well, monsieur!" Dr. Chesnard said contemptuously, shaking his small, bald, gray head.... "I am only a district doctor and have no ambition. I shall speak to you quite frankly. Gombauld or no Gombauld--it will make little difference. An embolism is an embolism. There are not ten thousand treatments for such a case. There is only one, and it is that which I have indicated.... Of course, if a consultation appeals to you, I see no inconvenience in having it." The meeting was fixed for noon. They arranged a bed with a mattress and blankets in the front room, on the green rep couch. Every other hour the Galician, after watching the patient, went to stretch out upon it.