y've done what you wanted. There's no other news, except that
Schmidt, the merchant, has killed himself. He had to pay a note for ten
thousand thalers, and didn't have half the amount on hand. He came to
ask me for the money; I offered him ten thousand thalers, at twenty-five
per cent., payable in ninety days, with a first mortgage on all his real
estate. The fool preferred to hang himself in his shop. Everyone to his
taste!"

"Did he hang himself very high?"

"I don't know anything about that. Why?"

"Because one might get a piece of rope cheap, and we're greatly in want
of some, my poor Catharine! That Colonel Fougas has given me a shiver."

"Some more of your notions! Come to supper, my love."

"Come on!"

The angular Baucis conducted her Philemon into a large and beautiful
dining-room, where Berbel served a repast worthy of the gods. Soup with
little balls of aniseeded bread, fish-balls with black sauce,
mutton-balls stuffed, game balls, sour-krout cooked in lard and
garnished with fried potatoes, roast hare with currant jelly, deviled
crabs, salmon from the Vistula, jellies, and fruit tarts. Six bottles of
Rhine-wine selected from the best vintages were awaiting, in their
silver caps, the master's kiss. But the lord of all these good things
was neither hungry nor thirsty. He ate by nibbles and drank by sips, all
the time expecting a grand consummation, which he did not have to
expect along. A formidable rap of the knocker soon resounded through the
house.

Nicholas Meiser trembled. His wife tried to reassure him. "It's
nothing," said she. "The president of the bank told me that he was
coming to see you. He offers to pay us the exchange, if we'll take paper
instead of specie."

"It _is_ about money, sure as Fate!" cried the good man. "Hell itself is
coming to see us!"

At the same instant, the servant rushed into the room, crying, "Oh, Sir!
Oh, Madame! It's the Frenchman of the three coffins! Jesus! Mary, Mother
of God!"

Fougas saluted them, and said, "Don't disturb yourselves, good people, I
beg of you. We've a little matter to discuss together, and I'm ready to
explain it to you in two words. You're in a hurry, so am I; you've not
had supper, neither have I!"

Frau Meiser, more rigid and more emaciated than a thirteenth-century
statue, opened wide her toothless mouth. Terror paralyzed her. The man,
better prepared for the visit of the phantom, cocked his revolver under
the table and took aim at the