lf superior in mind to the whole
bourgeoisie of Nemours, was now counting on his intimacy with Minoret's
son Desire to obtain the means of buying one or the other of three town
offices,--that of clerk of the court, or the legal practice of one of
the sheriffs, or that of Dionis himself. For this reason he put up
with the affronts of the post master and the contempt of Madame
Minoret-Levrault, and played a contemptible part towards Desire,
consoling the fair victims whom that youth left behind him after each
vacation,--devouring the crumbs of the loaves he had kneaded.

"If I were the nephew of a rich old fellow, he never would have given
God to ME for a co-heir," retorted Goupil, with a hideous grin which
exhibited his teeth--few, black, and menacing.

Just then Massin-Levrault, junior, the clerk of the court, joined his
wife, bringing with him Madame Cremiere, the wife of the tax-collector
of Nemours. This man, one of the hardest natures of the little town, had
the physical characteristics of a Tartar: eyes small and round as sloes
beneath a retreating brow, crimped hair, an oily skin, huge ears without
any rim, a mouth almost without lips, and a scanty beard. He spoke like
a man who was losing his voice. To exhibit him thoroughly it is enough
to say that he employed his wife and eldest daughter to serve his legal
notices.

Madame Cremiere was a stout woman, with a fair complexion injured by
red blotches, always too tightly laced, intimate with Madame Dionis, and
supposed to be educated because she read novels. Full of pretensions to
wit and elegance, she was awaiting her uncle's money to "take a certain
stand," decorate her salon, and receive the bourgeoisie. At present her
husband denied her Carcel lamps, lithographs, and all the other trifles
the notary's wife possessed. She was excessively afraid of Goupil, who
caught up and retailed her "slapsus-linquies" as she called them. One
day Madame Dionis chanced to ask what "Eau" she thought best for the
teeth.

"Try opium," she replied.

Nearly all the collateral heirs of old Doctor Minoret were now assembled
in the square; the importance of the event which brought them was so
generally felt that even groups of peasants, armed with their scarlet
umbrellas and dressed in those brilliant colors which make them so
picturesque on Sundays and fete-days, stood by, with their eyes fixed on
the frightened heirs. In all little towns which are midway between
large villages a