Cibot.
In Paris, where walls have ears, where doors have tongues, and window
bars have eyes, there are few things more dangerous than the practice
of standing to chat in a gateway. Partings are like postscripts to a
letter--indiscreet utterances that do as much mischief to the speaker
as to those who overhear them. A single instance will be sufficient as
a parallel to an event in this history.
In the time of the Empire, when men paid considerable attention to
their hair, one of the first coiffeurs of the day came out of a house
where he had just been dressing a pretty woman's head. This artist in
question enjoyed the custom of all the lower floor inmates of the
house; and among these, there flourished an elderly bachelor guarded
by a housekeeper who detested her master's next-of-kin. The
_ci-devant_ young man, falling seriously ill, the most famous of
doctors of the day (they were not as yet styled the "princes of
science") had been called in to consult upon his case; and it so
chanced that the learned gentlemen were taking leave of one another
in the gateway just as the hairdresser came out. They were talking as
doctors usually talk among themselves when the farce of a consultation
is over. "He is a dead man," quoth Dr. Haudry.--"He had not a month
to live," added Desplein, "unless a miracle takes place."--These were
the words overheard by the hairdresser.
Like all hairdressers, he kept up a good understanding with his
customers' servants.
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