“But the old gentleman has a horror of his relatives. He says over and over again that these people—M. Cardot, M. Berthier, and the rest of them (I can’t remember their names)—have crushed him as a tumbril cart crushes an egg—”
“Have you a mind to be crushed too?”
“Oh dear! oh dear!” cried La Cibot. “Ah! Ma’am Fontaine was right when she said that I should meet with difficulties: still, she said that I should succeed—”
“Listen, my dear Mme. Cibot.—As for making some thirty thousand francs out of this business—that is possible; but for the whole of the property, it is useless to think of it. We talked over your case yesterday evening, Dr. Poulain and I—”
La Cibot started again.
“Well, what is the matter?”
“But if you knew about the affair, why did you let me chatter away like a magpie?”
“Mme. Cibot, I knew all about your business, but I knew nothing of Mme. Cibot. So many clients, so many characters—”
Mme. Cibot gave her legal adviser a queer look at this; all her suspicions gleamed in her eyes. Fraisier saw this.
“I resume,” he continued. “So, our friend Poulain was once called in by you to attend old M. Pillerault, the Countess Popinot’s great-uncle; that is one of your claims to my devotion. Poulain goes to see your landlord (mark this!) once a fortnight; he learned all these particulars from him. M. Pillerault was present at his grand-nephew’s wedding—for he is an uncle with money to leave; he has an income of fifteen thousand francs, though he has lived like a hermit for the last five-and-twenty years, and scarcely spends a thousand crowns—well, he told Poulain all about this marriage. It seems that your old musician was precisely the cause of the row; he tried to disgrace his own family by way of revenge.—If you only hear one bell, you only hear one sound.—Your invalid says that he meant no harm, but everybody thinks him a monster of—”