r
chudgment."

Mme. Cibot went down to the court, and that very day at seven o'clock
she called to Schmucke. Schmucke found himself confronted with M.
Tabareau the bailiff, who called upon him to pay. Schmucke made answer,
trembling from head to foot, and was forthwith summoned together with
Pons, to appear in the county court to hear judgment against him. The
sight of the bailiff and a bit of stamped paper covered with scrawls
produced such an effect upon Schmucke, that he held out no longer.

"Sell die bictures," he said, with tears in his eyes.

Next morning, at six o'clock, Elie Magus and Remonencq took down the
paintings of their choice. Two receipts for two thousand five hundred
francs were made out in correct form:--

"I, the undersigned, representing M. Pons, acknowledge the receipt
of two thousand five hundred francs from M. Elie Magus for the four
pictures sold to him, the said sum being appropriated to the use of M.
Pons. The first picture, attributed to Durer, is a portrait of a woman;
the second, likewise a portrait, is of the Italian School; the third,
a Dutch landscape by Breughel; and the fourth, a _Holy Family_ by an
unknown master of the Florentine School."

Remonencq's receipt was worded in precisely the same way; a Greuze, a
Claude Lorraine, a Rubens, and a Van Dyck being disguised as pictures of
the French and Flemish schools.

"Der monny makes me beleef dot the chimcracks haf som value," said
Schmucke when the five thousand francs were paid over.

"They are worth something," said Remonencq. "I would willingly give you
a hundred thousand francs for the lot."

Remonencq, asked to do a trifling service, hung eight pictures of the
proper size in the same frames, taking them from among the less valuable
pictures in Schmucke's bedroom.

No sooner was Elie Magus in possession of the four great pictures than
he went, taking La Cibot with him, under pretence of settling accounts.
But he pleaded poverty, he found fault with the pictures, they needed
rebacking, he offered La Cibot thirty thousand francs by way of
commission, and finally dazzled her with the sheets of paper on which
the Bank of France engraves the words "One thousand francs" in capital
letters. Magus thereupon condemned Remonencq to pay the like sum to La
Cibot, by lending him the money on the security of his four pictures,
which he took with him as a guarantee. So glorious were they, that Magus
could not bring himself to part with