At last an old-fashioned carriage and a clumsy horse came out of the stables and stood before the doctor's house. Almost immediately the doctor appeared, big, fat, with a grey beard.
Before he could step into his carriage Perrine was beside him. She put her question tremblingly.
"The Guillot Field?" he said. "Has there been a fight?"
"No, sir; it's my mother who is ill."
"Who is your mother?"
"We are photographers."
He put his foot on the step. She offered him her forty sous quickly.
"We can pay you," she hastened to say.
"Then it's sixty sous," said he.
She added twenty sous more. He took the money and slipped it into his waistcoat pocket.