"Get bedder, and ve vill lif like kings, all tree of us," exclaimed Schmucke.
"Cibot!" panted the portress as she entered the lodge. "Oh, my dear, our fortune is made. My two gentlemen haven't nobody to come after them, no natural children, no nothing, in short! Oh, I shall go round to Ma'am Fontaine's and get her to tell my fortune on the cards, then we shall know how much we are going to have—"
"Wife," said the little tailor, "it's ill counting on dead men's shoes."
"Oh, I say, are you going to worry me?" asked she, giving her spouse a playful tap. "I know what I know! Dr. Poulain has given up M. Pons. And we are going to be rich! My name will be down in the will. . . . I'll see to that. Draw your needle in and out, and look after the lodge; you will not do it for long now. We will retire, and go into the country, out at Batignolles. A nice house and a fine garden; you will amuse yourself with gardening, and I shall keep a servant!"
"Well, neighbor, and how are things going on upstairs?" The words were spoken with the thick Auvergnat accent, and Remonencq put his head in at the door. "Do you know what the collection is worth?"
"No, no, not yet. One can't go at that rate, my good man. I have begun, myself, by finding out more important things—"
"More important!" exclaimed Remonencq; "why, what things can be more important?"
"Come, let me do the steering, ragamuffin," said La Cibot authoritatively.
"But thirty per cent on seven hundred thousand francs," persisted the dealer in old iron; "you could be your own mistress for the rest of your days on that."
"Be easy, Daddy Remonencq; when we want to know the value of the things that the old man has got together, then we will see."