the former
brewer, now a very wealthy land-owner and heavy holder of stocks,
sixty-six years of age. This old man very well remembered the death and
will of his uncle, the _savant_; but he did not speak of them without a
certain reluctance. Moreover, he said that immediately after the decease
of John Meiser, he had called together ten physicians of Dantzic around
the mummy of the Colonel; he showed also a unanimous statement of these
gentlemen, affirming that a man desiccated in a furnace cannot in any
way or by any means return to life. This certificate, drawn up by the
professional competitors and enemies of the deceased, made no mention of
the paper annexed to the will. Nicholas Meiser swore by all the Gods
(but not without visibly coloring) that this document concerning the
methods to be pursued in resuscitating the Colonel, had never been known
by himself or his wife. When interrogated regarding the reasons which
could have brought him to part with a trust as precious as the body of
M. Fougas, he said that he had kept it in his house fifteen years with
every imaginable respect and care, but that at the end of that time,
becoming beset with visions and being awakened almost every night by the
Colonel's ghost coming and pulling at his feet, he concluded to sell it
for twenty crowns to a Berlin amateur. Since he had been rid of this
dismal neighbor, he had slept a great deal better, but not entirely well
yet; for it had been impossible for him to forget the apparition of the
Colonel.

To these revelations, Herr Hirtz, physician to His Royal Highness the
Prince Regent of Prussia, added some remarks of his own. He did not
think that the resuscitation of a healthy man, desiccated with
precaution, was impossible in theory; he thought also, that the process
of desiccation indicated by the illustrious John Meiser was the best to
follow. But in the present case, it did not appear to him probable that
Colonel Fougas could be called back to life; the atmospheric influences
and the variations of temperature which he had undergone during a period
of forty six years, must have altered the fluids and the tissues.

This was also the opinion of M. Renault and his son. To quiet
Clementine's excitement a little, they read to her the concluding
paragraphs of Prof. Hirtz' letter. They kept from her John Meiser's
will, which could have done nothing but excite her. But the little
imagination worked on without cessation, do what they wou