When he awoke, or rather when the truce was over and he again became conscious of his sorrows, Pons’ coffin lay under the gateway in such a state as a third-class funeral may claim, and Schmucke, seeking vainly for his friend, wandered from room to room, across vast spaces, as it seemed to him, empty of everything save hideous memories.  La Sauvage took him in hand, much as a nurse manages a child; she made him take his breakfast before starting for the church; and while the poor sufferer forced himself to eat, she discovered, with lamentations worthy of Jeremiah, that he had not a black coat in his possession.  La Cibot took entire charge of his wardrobe; since Pons fell ill, his apparel, like his dinner, had been reduced to the lowest terms—­to a couple of coats and two pairs of trousers.

“And you are going just as you are to M. Pons’ funeral?  It is an unheard-of thing; the whole quarter will cry shame upon us!”

“Und how vill you dat I go?”

“Why, in mourning—­”

“Mourning!”

“It is the proper thing.”

“Der bropper ding! . . .  Confound all dis stupid nonsense!” cried poor Schmucke, driven to the last degree of exasperation which a childlike soul can reach under stress of sorrow.

“Why, the man is a monster of ingratitude!” said La Sauvage, turning to a personage who just then appeared.  At the sight of this functionary Schmucke shuddered.  The newcomer wore a splendid suit of black, black knee-breeches, black silk stockings, a pair of white cuffs, an extremely correct white muslin tie, and white gloves.  A silver chain with a coin attached ornamented his person.  A typical official, stamped with the official expression of decorous gloom, an ebony wand in his hand by way of insignia of office, he stood waiting with a three-cornered hat adorned with the tricolor cockade under his arm.

“I am the master of the ceremonies,” this person remarked in a subdued voice.

Accustomed daily to superintend funerals, to move among families plunged in one and the same kind of tribulation, real or feigned, this man, like the rest of his fraternity, spoke in hushed and soothing tones; he was decorous, polished, and formal, like an allegorical stone figure of Death.

Schmucke quivered through every nerve as if he were confronting his executioner.

“Is this gentleman the son, brother, or father of the deceased?” inquired the official.

“I am all dat and more pesides—­I am his friend,” said Schmucke through a torrent of weeping.

“Are you his heir?”

“Heir? . . .” repeated Schmucke.  “Noding matters to me more in dis vorld,” returning to his attitude of hopeless sorrow.

“Where are the relatives, the friends?” asked the master of the ceremonies.

“All here!” exclaimed the German, indicating the pictures and rarities.  “Not von of dem haf efer gifn bain to mein boor Bons. . . .  Here ees everydings dot he lofed, after me.”