if they do not make the
journey; so, empty or full, the mourning coaches go to the church and
cemetery and return to the house for gratuities. A death is a sort
of drinking-fountain for an unimagined crowd of thirsty mortals. The
attendants at the church, the poor, the undertaker's men, the drivers
and sextons, are creatures like sponges that dip into a hearse and come
out again saturated.

From the church door, where he was beset with a swarm of beggars
(promptly dispersed by the beadle), to Pere-Lachaise, poor Schmucke went
as criminals went in old times from the Palais de Justice to the
Place de Greve. It was his own funeral that he followed, clinging to
Topinard's hand, to the one living creature besides himself who felt a
pang of real regret for Pons' death.

As for Topinard, greatly touched by the honor of the request to act as
pall-bearer, content to drive in a carriage, the possessor of a new pair
of gloves,--it began to dawn upon him that this was to be one of the
great days of his life. Schmucke was driven passively along the road, as
some unlucky calf is driven in a butcher's cart to the slaughter-house.
Fraisier and Villemot sat with their backs to the horses. Now, as those
know whose sad fortune it has been to accompany many of their friends to
their last resting-place, all hypocrisy breaks down in the coach during
the journey (often a very long one) from the church to the eastern
cemetery, to that one of the burying-grounds of Paris in which all
vanities, all kinds of display, are met, so rich is it in sumptuous
monuments. On these occasions those who feel least begin to talk
soonest, and in the end the saddest listen, and their thoughts are
diverted.

"M. le President had already started for the Court." Fraisier told
Villemot, "and I did not think it necessary to tear him away from
business; he would have come too late, in any case. He is the
next-of-kin; but as he has been disinherited, and M. Schmucke gets
everything, I thought that if his legal representative were present it
would be enough."

Topinard lent an ear to this.

"Who was the queer customer that took the fourth corner?" continued
Fraisier.

"He is an agent for a firm of monumental stone-masons. He would like an
order for a tomb, on which he proposes to put three sculptured marble
figures--Music, Painting, and Sculpture shedding tears over the
deceased."

"It is an idea," said Fraisier; "the old gentleman certainly deserved
that mu