We will conduct the reader to the house in the Rue du Temple, the day of the suicide of M. d'Harville, about three o'clock in the afternoon. Pipelet, the porter, alone in the lodge, was occupied in mending a boot. The chaste porter was dejected and melancholy. As a soldier, in the humiliation of his defeat, passes his hand sadly over his scars, Pipelet breathed a profound sigh, stopped his work, and moved his trembling finger over the transverse fracture of his huge hat, made by an insolent hand. Then all the chagrin, inquietude, and fears of Alfred Pipelet were awakened in thinking of the inconceivable and incessant pursuits of the author.

Pipelet had not a very extended or elevated mind; his imagination was not the most lively nor the most poetical, but he possessed a very solid, very logical, very common sense.

Cabrion, a painter, formerly a tenant, had seen fit to make the porter a butt of the most audacious practical jokes, inundating him with caricatures, laughable labels, and startling appearances before his unexpectant appalled sight. Unfortunately, by a natural consequence of the rectitude of his judgment, not being able to comprehend practical jokes, Pipelet endeavored to find some reasonable motive for the outrageous conduct of Cabrion, and on this subject he posed himself with a thousand insoluble questions. Thus, sometimes, a new Paschal, he felt himself seized with a vertigo in trying to sound the bottomless abyss which the infernal genius of the painter had dug under his feet. How many times, in the overflowings of his imagination, he had been forced to commune within himself thanks to the frenzied skepticism of Madame Pipelet, who, only looking at facts, and disdaining to seek after causes, grossly considered the incomprehensible conduct of Cabrion toward Alfred as simple comicality.

Pipelet, a serious man, could not admit of such an interpretation; he groaned at the blindness of his wife; his dignity as a man revolted at the thought that he could be the plaything of a combination so vulgar as a lark! He was absolutely convinced that the unheard-of conduct of Cabriori concealed some mysterious plot under a frivolous appearance.

It was to solve this fatal problem that the man in the big hat exhausted his powerful logic. "I would sooner lay my head on the scaffold," said this austere man, who, as soon as he touched them, increased immensely the importance of any propositions. "I would sooner lay my head upon the scaffold than admit that, in the mere intention of a stupid pleasantry, Cabrion could be so obstinately exasperated against me; a farce is only played for the gallery. Now, in his last undertaking, this obnoxious creature had no witness; he acted alone and in obscurity, as always; he clandestinely introduced himself into the solitude of my lodge to deposit on my forehead a hideous kiss! I ask any disinterested person, for what purpose? It was not from bravado—no one saw him; it was not from pleasure—the laws of nature opposed it; it was not from friendship—I have but one enemy in the world—it is he. It must, then, be acknowledged that there is a mystery there which my reason cannot penetrate! Then to what does this diabolical plot, concerted and pursued with a persistence which alarms me, tend? That I cannot comprehend: it is this impossibility to raise the veil, which, by degrees, is undermining and consuming me."

Such were the painful reflections of Pipelet at the moment when we present him to our readers. The honest porter had just torn open his bleeding wounds, by carry—his hand mechanically to the fracture of his hat, when a piercing voice, coming from one of the upper stories of the house, made these words resound again: "Mr. Pipelet, quick! quick! come up! make haste!"

"I do not know that voice," said Alfred, after a moment of anxious listening, and he let his arm, inclosed in the boot he was mending, fall on his knees.

"Mr. Pipelet! make haste!" repeated the voice, in a pressing tone.

"That voice is completely strange to me. It is masculine; it calls me, that I can affirm. It is not a sufficient reason that I should abandon my lodge. Leave it—desert it in the absence of my wife—never!" cried Alfred, heroically, "never!"

"Mr. Pipelet," said the voice, "come up quick, Mrs. Pipelet is off in a swoon."

"Anastasia!" cried Alfred, rising from his seat: then be fell back again, saying to himself, "child that I am—it is impossible; my wife went out an hour ago. Yes, but might she not have returned without my seeing her? This would be rather irregular; but I must declare that it is possible."

"Mr. Pipelet, come up; I have your wife in my arms!"

"Some one has my wife in their arms!" said Pipelet, rising abruptly.

"I cannot unlace Mrs. Pipelet all alone!" added the voice.

These words produced a magical effect upon Alfred: his face flushed, his chastity revolted.

"The masculine and unknown voice speaks of unlacing Anastasia!" cried he: "I oppose it, I forbid it!" and he rushed out of the lodge; but on the threshold he stopped.

Pipelet found himself in one of those horribly critical, and eminently dramatical positions, so often described by poets. On the one hand, duty retained him in his lodge: on the other, his chaste and conjugal susceptibility called him to the upper stories of the house. In the midst of these terrible perplexities, the voice said:

"You don't come, Mr. Pipelet? so much the worse—I cut the strings, and I shut my eyes!"

This threat decided Pipelet.

"Mossieur!" cried he, in a stentorian voice, "in the name of honor I conjure you to cut nothing—to leave my wife intact! I come!" and Alfred rushed upstairs, leaving, in his alarm, the door of the lodge open. Hardly had he left it, than a man entered quickly, took from the table a hammer, jumped on the bed, at the back part of the obscure alcove, and vanished. This operation was done so quickly, that the porter, remembering almost immediately that he had left the door open, returned precipitately, shut it, and carried off the key, without suspecting that any one could have entered in this interval. After this measure of precaution, Alfred started again to the assistance of Anastasia, crying, with all his strength, "Cut nothing—I am coming— here I am—I place my wife under the safeguard of your delicacy!"

Hardly had he mounted the first flight, before he heard the voice of
Anastasia, not from the upper story, but in the alley.

The voice, shriller than ever cried, "Alfred! here you leave the lodge alone! Where are you, old gadabout?"

At this moment, Pipelet was about placing his right foot on the landing-place of the first story; he remained petrified, his head turned toward the bottom of the stairs, his mouth open, his eyes fixed, his foot raised.

"Alfred!" cried Mrs. Pipelet anew.

"Anastasia is below—she is not above, occupied in being sick," said Pipelet to himself, faithful to his logical argumentation. "But then this unknown and masculine voice, who threatened to unlace her, is an impostor. He has been playing a cruel game with my emotions! What is his design? There is something extraordinary going on here! No matter: do your duty, happen what may! After having responded to my wife, I shall mount to enlighten this mystery and verify this voice."

Pipelet descended, very much troubled, and found himself face to face with his wife.

"It is you?" said he.

"Well! yes, it is me; who would you have it to be?"

"It is you—my eyes do not deceive me!"

"Ah, now! what is the matter, that makes your big eyes look like billiard balls? You look at me as if you were going to eat me."

"Your presence reveals to me that something has been passing here— things—"

"What things? Come, give me the key of the lodge; why do you leave it? I come from the office of the Normandy diligences, where I went in a hack, to carry the trunk of M. Bradamanti, who did not wish it to be known that he was about to leave town to-night, and who could not depend on that little scoundrel Tortillard (Hoppy)—and he is right!"

Saying these words, Mrs. Pipelet took the key, which her husband held in his hand, opened the lodge, and went in before her husband.

Hardly had they entered, when a person, descending the staircase lightly, passed rapidly and unperceived before the lodge. It was the "masculine voice" which had so deeply excited the inquietudes of Alfred.

Pipelet rested himself heavily on his chair, and said to his wife in a trembling voice, "Anastasia, I do not feel at my accustomed ease; things occurring here—events—"

"Now you repeat that again; but things occur everywhere; what is the matter? Come, let us see—why, you are all wet—all in a perspiration! what effort have you been making? He's all a-trickling—the old darling!"

"Yes, I perspire, as I have reason to;" Pipelet passed his hand over his face, dripping with moisture; "for there are regular revolutionary events passing here."

"Again I ask, what is it? You never can remain quiet. You must always be trotting about like a cat, instead of remaining in your chair to take care of the lodge."

"If I trot, it is for you."

"For me?"

"Yes; to spare you an outrage for which we both should have groaned and blushed, I have deserted a post which I consider as sacred as the sentry-box."

"Some one wished to commit an outrage on me—on me!"

"It was not on you, since the outrage of which you were threatened was to have been accomplished upstairs, and you were gone out—"

"May Old Harry run away with me, if I understand a single word of what you are singing there. Ah, ah! is it that you are decidedly losing your noddle? I shall begin to think that you are absent-minded—the fault of that beggarly Cabrion! Since his games of the other day, I don't know you; you look struck all of a heap. That being will be always your nightmare."

Hardly had Anastasia pronounced the words than a strange thing came to pass. Alfred remained sitting, his face turned toward the bed. The lodge was lighted by the sickly light of a winter's day, and by a lamp. At the moment his wife pronounced the name Cabrion, Pipelet thought he saw in the shade of the alcove the immovable, cunning face of the painter. It was he, his pointed hat, long hair, thin face, satanic smile, queer beard, and paralyzing gaze. For a moment, Pipelet thought himself in a dream; he passed his hand over his eyes, believing that he was the victim of an illusion. It was not an illusion. Nothing could be more real than this apparition. Frightful thing! nobody could be seen, but only a head, of which the living flesh stood out in bold relief from the obscurity of the alcove. At this sight Pipelet fell over backward, without saying a word; he raised his right arm toward the bed, and pointed at this terrible vision, with a gesture so alarming, that Mrs. Pipelet turned to seek the cause of an alarm of which she soon partook, in spite of her habitual courage. She recoiled two steps, seized with force the hand of Alfred, and cried, "Cabrion!"

"Yes," murmured Pipelet, in a hollow voice, almost extinct, shutting his eyes.

The stupor of the pair paid the greatest honor to the talent of the artist who had so admirably painted on the pasteboard the features of Cabrion. Her first surprise over, Anastasia, as bold as a lion, ran to the bed, got on it, and tore the picture from the wall.

The amazon crowned this valiant enterprise by shouting, as a war-cry, her favorite exclamation, "Go ahead!"

Alfred, with his eyes closed, his hands stretched forth, remained immovable, as he had always been accustomed to do in the critical moments of his life. The convulsive oscillations of his hat alone revealed, from time to time, the continued violence of his interior emotions.

"Open your eyes, old darling," said Mrs. Pipelet, triumphantly; "it's nothing! it's a picture; the portrait of that scoundrel Cabrion! Look, see how I stamp upon him!" and Anastasia, in her indignation, threw the picture on the ground, and trampled it under her feet, crying, "That's the way I would like to treat his flesh and bones, the wretch!" then picking it up, "see!" said she, "now it has my marks; look now!"

Alfred shook his head negatively, without saying a word, and making a sign to his wife to take away the detested picture.

"Has ever any one seen such impudence? This is not all; he has written at the bottom, in red letters, 'Cabrion, to his good friend Pipelet, for life,'" said the portress, examining the picture by the light.

"His good friend for life!" murmured Alfred; raising his hands as if to call heaven to witness this new outrageous irony.

[Illustration: Louise in Prison]

"But how could he do it?" said Anastasia. "This portrait was not there this morning when I made the bed, very sure. You took the key with you just now: nobody could have entered while you were absent? How, then, once more, could this portrait get there? Could it be you, by chance, who put it there, old darling?"

At this monstrous hypothesis, Alfred bounced from his seat; he opened his eyes wide and threatening.

"I fasten in my alcove the portrait of this evil-doer, who, not content with persecuting me by his odious presence, pursues me at night in my dreams—the daytime in a picture! Would you make me mad, Anastasia? mad enough to be chained?"

"Well! for the sake of making peace, you might have agreed with
Cabrion during my absence. Where would be the great harm?"

"I make up with—oh, merciful powers! you hear her?"

"And then, he might have given you his portrait, as a pledge of friendship. If this is so, do not deny it."

"Anastasia!"

"If this is so, it must be confessed you are as capricious as a pretty woman."

"Wife!"

"In short, it must have been you who placed the portrait!"

"I—oh!"

"But who is it then?"

"You, madame."

"I!"

"Yes," cried Pipelet wildly, "it is you; I have reason to believe it is you. This morning, having my back turned toward the bed I could see nothing."

"But, old darling, I tell you it must be you, otherwise I shall think it was the devil."

"I have not left the lodge, and when I went upstairs to answer to the call of the masculine organ, I had the key; the door was shut. You opened it; deny that!"

"Ma foi; it is true!"

"You confess, then?"

"I confess that I comprehend nothing. It's a game, and it is prettily played."

"A game!" cried Pipelet, carried away by frenzied indignation. "Ah! there you are again! I tell you, I, that all this conceals some abominable plot; there is something under all this—a plot. The abyss is hidden under flowers—they try to stun me to prevent my seeing the precipice from which they wish to plunge me. It only remains for me to place myself under the protection of the laws. Happily, the Lord is on our side;" and Pipelet turned toward the door,

"Where are you going, old darling?"

"To the commissary's, to lodge my complaint, and this portrait as proof of the persecutions I am overwhelmed with."

"But what will you complain of?"

"What will I complain of? How! my most inveterate enemy shall find means by proceeding fraudulently to force me to have his portrait in my house, even on my nuptial bed, and the magistrates will not take me under the aegis? Give me the portrait, Anastasia—give it to me—not the side where the painting is, the sight revolts me! The traitor cannot deny it; it is in his hand; Cabrion to his good friend Pipelet, for life. For life! Yes, that's it; for my life, without doubt, he pursues me, and he will finish by having it. I live in continual alarm: I shall think that this infernal being is here, always here— under the floor, in the walls, in the ceiling! at night he sees me reposing in the arms of my wife; in the daytime he is standing behind me, always with his satanic smile; and who will tell me that even at this moment he is not here, concealed somewhere, like a venomous insect? Come, now! are you there, monster? Are you here?" cried Pipelet, accompanying this furious imprecation with a circular movement of the head, as if he had wished to interrogate all parts of the lodge.

"I am here, good friend!" said most affectionately the well-known voice of Cabrion.

These words seemed to come from the bottom of the alcove, merely from the effects of ventriloquism; for the infernal artist was standing outside the door of the lodge, enjoying the smallest details of this scene; however, after having pronounced these last words, he prudently made off, not without leaving, as we shall see, a new subject of rage, astonishment, and meditation to his victim. Mrs. Pipelet, always courageous and skeptical, looked under the bed, and in every hole and corner, without success, while M. Pipelet, undone by the last blow, had fallen on the chair in a state of utter despair.

"It's nothing, Alfred," said Anastasia; "the scoundrel was concealed behind the door, and while I looked one way, he escaped the other. Patience, I'll catch him one of these days, and then, let him look out! he shall taste the handle of my broom!"

The door opened, and Mrs. Seraphin, housekeeper of Jacques Ferrand, entered.

"Good-day, Mrs. Seraphin," said Mrs. Pipelet, who, wishing to conceal from a stranger her domestic sorrows, assumed a very gracious and smiling air; "what can I do to serve you?"

"First, tell me, then, what is your new sign?"

"New sign?"

"The little sign."

"A little sign?"

"Yes, black with red letters, which is nailed over the door of your alley."

"In the street?"

"Why, yes, in the street, just over your door."

"My dear Mrs. Seraphin, may I never speak again, if I understand a word; and you, old darling?" Alfred remained dumb.

"In truth, it concerns Mr. Pipelet," said Mrs. Seraphin; "he must explain this to me."

Alfred uttered a sort of low, inarticulate groan, shaking his hat, a pantomime signifying that Alfred found himself incapable of explaining anything to others, being sufficiently preoccupied with an infinity of problems, each one more difficult of solution than the other.

"Pay no attention, Mrs. Seraphin," said Anastasia. "Poor Alfred has got the cramp; that makes him—"

"But what is this sign, then, of which you speak?"

"Perhaps our neighbor—"

"No, no; I tell you it is a little sign nailed over your door."

"Come, you want to joke."

"Not at all; I saw it as I came in. There is written on it in large letters, 'Pipelet and Cabrion, Dealers in Friendship, etc. Apply within.'"

"That's written over our door, do you hear, Alfred?"

Pipelet looked at Mrs. Seraphin with a wild stare. He did not comprehend; he did not wish to comprehend.

"It is in the street—on a sign!" repeated Mrs. Pipelet, confounded at this new audacity.

"Yes, for I have just read it. Then I said to myself, 'What a funny thing! Pipelet is a cobbler by trade, and he informs the passer-by that he is engaged in a commerce d'amitie with Cabrion. What does it signify? There is something concealed, it is clear; but as the sign says inquire within, Mrs. Pipelet will explain it." "But look there," cried Mrs. Seraphin, suddenly, "your husband looks as if he was sick; take care, he will fall backward!"

Mrs. Pipelet received Alfred in her arms, in a fainting state. This last blow had been too violent; the man nearly lost all consciousness as he pronounced these words:

"The creature has publicly posted me."

"I told you, Mrs. Seraphin, Alfred has the cramp, without speaking of an unchained blackguard, who undermines him with his sorry tricks. The poor old darling cannot resist it! Happily, I have a drop of bitters here; probably it will put him on his legs."

In fact, thanks to the infallible remedy of Mrs. Pipelet, Alfred by degrees recovered his senses; but, alas! hardly had he come to, than he had to undergo another trial.

A middle-aged person, neatly dressed, and with a pleasing face, opened the door, and said, "I have just seen on a sign placed over this door, 'Pipelet and Cabrion, Dealers in Friendship.' Can you, if you please, do me the honor to inform me what this means—you being the porter of this house?"

"What this means!" cried Pipelet in a thundering voice, giving vent to his indignation, too long suppressed; "this means that Mr. Cabrion is an infamous impostor, sir!"

The man, at this sudden and furious explosion, drew back a step. Alfred, much exasperated, with a fiery look and purple face, had stretched his body half out of the lodge, and leaned his contracted hands on the lower half of the door, while the figures of Mrs. Seraphin and Anastasia could be vaguely seen in the background, in the semi-obscure light of the lodge.

"Learn, sir," cried Pipelet, "that I have no dealings with this scoundrel Cabrion, and that of friendship still less than any other!"

"It is true; and you must be very queer, old noodle that you are to come and ask such a question," cried Madame Pipelet, sharply, showing her quarrelsome face over the shoulder of her husband.

"Madame!" said the man sententiously, falling back another step, "notices are made to be read; you put them up, I read; I have the right to do so, but you have no right to say such rude things."

"Rude things yourself, you beggarly wretch!" replied Anastasia, showing her teeth. "You are a low-bred fellow. Alfred, your boot-tree, till I take the length of his muzzle, to teach him to come and play the Joe Miller at his age, old clown!"

"Insults when one comes to ask the meaning of a notice placed over your own door? It shall not pass over in this way, madame!"

"But, sir!" cried the unhappy porter.

"But, sir," answered the quiz, pretending to be angry, "be as friendly as you please with your Mr. Cabrion, but zounds! don't stick it in large letters under the noses of the passers-by! I find myself under the necessity of telling you that you are a pitiful wretch, and that I shall go and make my complaint to the authorities!" and the quiz departed in a great rage.

"Anastasia!" said Mr. Pipelet, in a sorrowful tone, "I shall not survive this, I feel it; I am wounded to death. I have no hope of escaping him. You see, my name is publicly stuck up alongside of this wretch. He dares to say that I have a friendly trade with him, and the public will believe it. I inform you—I say it—I communicate it; it is monstrous, it is enormous it is an infernal idea: but it must finish; the measure is full; either he or I must fall in this struggle!" and, overcoming his habitual apathy, Pipelet, determined on a vigorous resolution, seized the portrait of Cabrion, and rushed toward the door.

"Where are you going to, Alfred?"

"To the commissary's. At the same time I am going to tear down this infamous sign; then with this portrait and this sign in my hand, I will cry to the commissary, 'Defend me! avenge me! deliver me from Cabrion!'"

"Well said, old darling; stir yourself, shake yourself; if you cannot get the sign down, ask the next door to help you, and lend you his ladder."

"Rascally Cabrion! Oh, if I had him, and I could do it, I'd fry him on my stove. I should like so much to see him suffer. Yes, people are guillotined who do not deserve it as much as he does. The wretch! I should like to see him on the scaffold, the villain!"

Alfred showed under these circumstances the most sublime equanimity. Notwithstanding his great causes of revenge against Cabrion, he had the generosity to feel sentiments akin to pity for him.

"No," said he; "no; even if I could, I would not ask for his head."

"As for me, I would. Go do it!" cried the ferocious Anastasia.

"No," replied Alfred; "I do not like blood; but I have a right to claim the perpetual seclusion of this evil-doer; my repose requires it; my health commands it; the law accords me this reparation; otherwise, I leave la France—ma belle France! That is what they'll gain!"

And Alfred, swallowed up in his grief, walked majestically out of the lodge, like one of those imposing victims of ancient fatality.