e tomb."

"I am going," said Schmucke. Blow after blow had given him an
intolerable pain at the heart.

"Oh! here comes M. Villemot!" exclaimed La Sauvage.

"Mennesir Fillemod," said poor Schmucke, "rebresent me."

"I hurried here at once," said Villemot. "I have come to tell you that
the will is completely in order; it will certainly be confirmed by the
court, and you will be put in possession. You will have a fine
fortune."

"_I?_ Ein fein vordune?" cried Schmucke, despairingly. That he of all
men should be suspected of caring for the money!

"And meantime what is the justice of the peace doing here with his wax
candles and his bits of tape?" asked La Sauvage.

"Oh, he is affixing seals. . . . Come, M. Schmucke, you have a right
to be present."

"No--go in yourself."

"But where is the use of the seals if M. Schmucke is in his own house
and everything belongs to him?" asked La Sauvage, doing justice in
feminine fashion, and interpreting the Code according to their fancy,
like one and all of her sex.

"M. Schmucke is not in possession, madame; he is in M. Pons' house.
Everything will be his, no doubt; but the legatee cannot take
possession without an authorization--an order from the Tribunal. And
if the next-of-kin set aside by the testator should dispute the order,
a lawsuit is the result. And as nobody knows what may happen,
everything is sealed up, and the notaries representing either side
proceed to draw up an inventory during the delay prescribed by the
law. . . . And there you are!"

Schmucke, hearing such talk for the first time in his life, was
completely bewildered by it; his head sank down upon the back of his
chair--he could not support it, it had grown so heavy.

Villemot meanwhile went off to chat with the justice of the peace and
his clerk, assisting with professional coolness to affix the seals--a
ceremony which always involves some buffoonery and plentiful comments
on the objects thus secured, unless, indeed, one of the family happens
to be present. At length the party sealed up the chamber and returned
to the dining-room, whither the clerk betook himself. Schmucke watched
the mechanical operation which consists in setting the justice's seal
at either end of a bit of tape stretched across the opening of a
folding-door; or, in the case of a cupboard or ordinary door, from
edge to edge above the door-handle.

"Now for this room," said Fraisier, pointing to Schmucke's bedroom,
which opene