."

"Goot! gif it to me," said Schmucke, anxious only to sign it at once.

"No, I must read it over to you first."

"Read it ofer."

Schmucke paid not the slightest attention to the reading of the power
of attorney, but he set his name to it. The young clerk took Schmucke's
orders for the funeral, the interment, and the burial service;
undertaking that he should not be troubled again in any way, nor asked
for money.

"I vould gif all dat I haf to be left in beace," said the unhappy man.
And once more he knelt beside the dead body of his friend.

Fraisier had triumphed. Villemot and La Sauvage completed the circle
which he had traced about Pons' heir.

There is no sorrow that sleep cannot overcome. Towards the end of
the day La Sauvage, coming in, found Schmucke stretched asleep at the
bed-foot. She carried him off, put him to bed, tucked him in maternally,
and till the morning Schmucke slept.

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 c