Between two attacks of apoplexy he made his will and deposited it with the magistrate.  Though half dead when, he gave over the certificate to the seven presumptive heirs he said in his old tone of voice that he did not wish this token of his decease to cause dejection to mature men whom he would much rather think of as laughing than as weeping heirs.  And only one of them, the coldly ironical Police-Inspector Harprecht, answered the smilingly ironical Croesus:  “It was not in their power to determine the extent of their collective sympathy in such a loss.”

At last the seven heirs appeared with their certificate at the city hall.  These were the Consistorial Councilor Glanz, the Police Inspector, the Court-Agent Neupeter, the Attorney of the Royal Treasury Knol, the Bookseller Passvogel, the Preacher-at-Early-Service Flachs, and Herr Flitte from Alsace.  They duly and properly requested of the magistrates the charter consigned to the latter by the late Kabel, and asked for the opening of the will.  The chief executor of the will was the officiating Burgomaster in person, the under-executors were the Municipal-Councilors.  Presently the charter and the will were fetched from the Council-chamber into the Burgomaster’s office, they were passed around to all the Councilors and the heirs, in order that they might see the privy seal of the city upon them, and the registry of the consignment written by the town clerk upon the charter was read aloud to the seven heirs.  Thereby it was made known to them that the charter had really been consigned to the magistrates by the late departed one and confided to them scrinio rei publicae, likewise that he had been in his right mind on the day of the consignment.  The seven seals which he himself had placed upon it were found to be intact.  Then—­after the Town-Clerk had again drawn up a short record of all this—­the will was opened in God’s name and read aloud by the officiating Burgomaster.  It ran as follows: 

“I, Van der Kabel, do draw up my will on this seventh day of May 179-, here in my house in Haslau, in Dog Street, without a great ado of words, although I have been both a German notary and a Dutch domine.  Notwithstanding, I believe that I am still sufficiently familiar with the notary’s art to be able to act as a regular testator and bequeather of property.

“Testators are supposed to commence by setting forth the motives which have caused them to make their will.  These with me, as with most, are my approaching death, and the disposal of an inheritance which is desired by many.  To talk about the funeral and such matters is too weak and silly.  That which remains of me, however, may the eternal sun above us make use of for one of his verdant springs, not for a gloomy winter!