As Ramin unlocked the door to leave, he found old Marguerite, who had been listening all the time, ready to assail him with a torrent of whispered abuse for duping her "poor dear innocent old master into such a bargain." The mercer bore it all very patiently: he could make all allowances for her excited feelings, and only rubbed his hands and bade her a jovial good evening.
The agreement was signed on the following day, to the indignation of old Marguerite, and the mutual satisfaction of the parties concerned.
Every one admired the luck and shrewdness of Ramin, for the old man every day was reported worse; and it was clear to all that the first quarter of the annuity would never be paid. Marguerite, in her wrath, told the story as a grievance to every one; people listened, shook their heads, and pronounced Monsieur Ramin to be a deuced clever fellow.
A month elapsed. As Ramin was coming down one morning from the attics, where he had been giving notice to a poor widow who had failed in paying her rent, he heard a light step on the stairs. Presently a sprightly gentleman, in buoyant health and spirits, wearing the form of Monsieur Bonelle, appeared. Ramin stood aghast.
"Well, Ramin," gaily said the old man, "how are you getting on? Have you been tormenting the poor widow up stairs? Why, man, we must live and let live!"
"Monsieur Bonelle," said the mercer, in a hollow tone; "may I ask where are your rheumatics?"
"And the gout that was creeping higher and higher every day," exclaimed Monsieur Ramin, in a voice of anguish.
"It went lower and lower, till it disappeared altogether," composedly replied Bonelle.
"The asthma remains, but asthmatic people are proverbially long-lived. It is, I have been told, the only complaint that Methusalah was troubled with." With this Bonelle opened his door, shut it, and disappeared.
Ramin was transfixed on the stairs; petrified with intense disappointment, and a powerful sense of having been duped. When he was discovered, he stared vacantly, and raved about an Excellent Opportunity of taking his revenge.
The wonderful cure was the talk of the neighborhood, whenever Monsieur Bonelle appeared in the streets, jauntily flourishing his cane. In the first frenzy of his despair, Ramin refused to pay; he accused every one of having been in a plot to deceive him; he turned off Catharine and expelled his porter: he publicly accused the lawyer and priest of conspiracy; brought an action against the doctor and lost it. He had another brought against him for violently assaulting Marguerite, in which he was cast in heavy damages. Monsieur Bonelle did not trouble himself with useless remonstrances, but when his annuity was refused, employed such good legal arguments, as the exasperated mercer could not possibly resist.