"Ah, I am truly to be pitied, my poor Madame Adolphe," said Madame Marmus. "This sort of thing has been going on for twenty years, and I am not yet accustomed to it. Six days after our wedding, we were going out of our room one morning to take breakfast. M. Marmus hears the drum of the Polytechnic School pupils of whom he was the professor. He quits me to go and see them pass. I was nineteen years of age and when I pouted, you cannot guess what he said to me. He said, 'These young people are the flower and the glory of France!' This is how my marriage began. You can judge of the rest."
"Oh, Monsieur, is it possible?" asked Madame Adolphe with an indignant air.
"I have cornered Sinard!" exclaimed M. Marmus triumphantly.
"Oh, he would let himself die!" exclaimed Madame Adolphe.
"Get something for him to eat," said Madame Marmus. "He would let himself do anything. Ah, my good Madame Adolphe, a man of science, you see, is a man who knows nothing—of life."
The malady was cured by a cataplasm of Italian cheese that the man of science ate without knowing what he was eating, for he held Sinard in a corner—