The clerk came out to speak to Schmucke.

“Would you wish to be present, sir, when the seals are affixed in the next room?”

“Go on, go on,” said Schmucke; “I shall pe allowed to die in beace, I bresume?”

“Oh, under any circumstances a man has a right to die,” the clerk answered, laughing; “most of our business relates to wills.  But, in my experience, the universal legatee very seldom follows the testator to the 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 opened into the dining-room.