were in this state when, one afternoon in
December, as he sat moping in his office, wrapped in an overcoat, with
a cap on his head and his feet thrust into a pair of furred slippers, a
cabriolet stopped at the door, and a loud knocking without aroused him
from his gloomy revery. It was a message from his friend the
wine-dealer, who had been suddenly attacked with a violent fever, and,
growing worse and worse, bad now sent in the greatest haste for the
notary to draw up his last will and testament. The case was urgent,
and admitted neither excuse nor delay; and the notary, tying a
handkerchief round his face, and buttoning up to the chin, jumped into
the cabriolet, and suffered himself, though not without some dismal
presentiments and misgivings of heart, to be driven to the
wine-dealer's house.

When he arrived he found everything in the greatest confusion. On
entering the house he ran against the apothecary, who was coming down
stairs, with a face as long as your arm; and a few steps farther he met
the housekeeper--for the wine-dealer was an old bachelor--running up
and down, and wringing her hands, for fear that the good man should die
without making his will. He soon reached the chamber of his sick
friend, and found him tossing about in a paroxysm of fever, and calling
aloud for a draught of cold water. The notary shook his head; he
thought this a fatal symptom; for ten years back the wine-dealer had
been suffering under a species of hydrophobia, which seemed suddenly to
have left him.

When the sick man saw who stood by his bedside he stretched out his
hand and exclaimed:

"Ah! my dear friend! have you come at last? You see it is all over
with me. You have arrived just in time to draw up that--that passport
of mine. Ah, _grand diable_! how hot it is here! Water--water--water!
Will nobody give me a drop of cold water?"

As the case was an urgent one, the notary made no delay in getting his
papers in readiness; and in a short time the last will and testament of
the wine-dealer was drawn up in due form, the notary guiding the sick
man's hand as he scrawled his signature at the bottom.

As the evening wore away, the wine-dealer grew worse and worse, and at
length became delirious, mingling in his incoherent ravings the phrases
of the Credo and Paternoster with the shibboleth of the dram-shop and
the card-table.

"Take care! take care! There, now--_Credo in_--Pop! ting-a-ling-ling!
give me some of that