doubtless, he observed, the condition annexed
to the bequest was an unusual one, but yet, in no respect contrary to law:
to him that wept the first the court was bound to adjudge the house: and
then placing his watch on the session table, the pointers of which indicated
that it was now just half-past eleven, he calmly sat down--that he might
duly witness in his official character of executor, assisted by the whole
court of aldermen, who should be the first to produce the requisite tear or
tears on behalf of the testator.

That since the terraqueous globe has moved or existed, there can ever
have met a more lugubrious congress, or one more out of temper and
enraged than this of Seven United Provinces, as it were, all dry and all
confederated for the purpose of weeping,--I suppose no impartial judge
will believe. At first some invaluable minutes were lost in pure
confusion of mind, in astonishment, in peals of laughter: the congress
found itself too suddenly translated into the condition of the dog to
which, in the very moment of his keenest assault upon some object of his
appetite, the fiend cried out--Halt! Whereupon, standing up as he was,
on his hind legs, his teeth grinning, and snarling with the fury of
desire, he halted and remained petrified:--from the graspings of hope,
however distant, to the necessity of weeping for a wager, the congress
found the transition too abrupt and harsh.

One thing was evident to all--that for a shower that was to come down at
such a full gallop, for a baptism of the eyes to be performed at such a
hunting pace, it was vain to think of any pure water of grief: no
hydraulics could effect this: yet in twenty-six minutes (four
unfortunately were already gone), in one way or other, perhaps, some
business might be done.

'Was there ever such a cursed act,' said the merchant Neupeter, 'such a
price of buffoonery enjoined by any man of sense and discretion? For my
part, I can't understand what the d----l it means.' However, he
understood this much, that a house was by possibility floating in his
purse upon a tear: and _that_ was enough to cause a violent irritation
in his lachrymal glands.

Knoll, the fiscal, was screwing up, twisting, and distorting his
features pretty much in the style of a poor artisan on Saturday night,
whom some fellow-workman is bar_ber_ously razoring and scraping by the
light of a cobbler's candle: furious was his wrath at this abuse and
profanation of the title _La