may know how much the property is worth. But--not until after
our sale, you understand!"

"I understand," said the Jew, "but it takes time to look at the things
and value them."

"You shall have half a day. But, there, that is my affair. Talk it over
between yourselves, my boys, and for that matter the business will be
settled by the day after to-morrow. I will go round to speak to this
Fraisier; for Dr. Poulain tells him everything that goes on in the
house, and it is a great bother to keep that scarecrow quiet."

La Cibot met Fraisier halfway between the Rue de la Perle and the Rue
de Normandie; so impatient was he to know the "elements of the case" (to
use his own expression), that he was coming to see her.

"I say! I was going to you," said she.

Fraisier grumbled because Elie Magus had refused to see him. But La
Cibot extinguished the spark of distrust that gleamed in the lawyer's
eyes by informing him that Elie Magus had returned from a journey,
and that she would arrange for an interview in Pons' rooms and for the
valuation of the property; for the day after to-morrow at latest.

"Deal frankly with me," returned Fraisier. "It is more than probable
that I shall act for M. Pons' next-of-kin. In that case, I shall be even
better able to serve you."

The words were spoken so drily that La Cibot quaked. This starving limb
of the law was sure to manoeuvre on his side as she herself was doing.
She resolved forthwith to hurry on the sale of the pictures.

La Cibot was right. The doctor and lawyer had clubbed together to buy
a new suit of clothes in which Fraisier could decently present himself
before Mme. la Presidente Camusot de Marville. Indeed, if the clothes
had been ready, the interview would have taken place sooner, for the
fate of the couple hung upon its issues. Fraisier left Mme. Cibot, and
went to try on his new clothes. He found them waiting for him, went
home, adjusted his new wig, and towards ten o'clock that morning set out
in a carriage from a livery stable for the Rue de Hanovre, hoping for an
audience. In his white tie, yellow gloves, and new wig, redolent of _eau
de Portugal_, he looked something like a poisonous essence kept in a
cut-glass bottle, seeming but the more deadly because everything about
it is daintily neat, from the stopper covered with white kid to the
label and the thread. His peremptory manner, the eruption on his
blotched countenance, the green eyes, and a malignant something