“Und vy?”

“He is so cunning.  It is his illness, for he is a lamb when he is well.  He is capable of getting up and prying about; and if by any chance he went into the salon, he is so weak that he could not go beyond the door; he would see that they are all still there.”

“Drue!”

“And when he is quite well, we will tell him about the sale.  And if you wish to confess, throw it all upon me, say that you were obliged to pay me.  Come!  I have a broad back—­”

“I cannot tispose of dings dot are not mine,” the good German answered simply.

“Very well.  I will summons you, you and M. Pons.”

“It vould kill him—­”

“Take your choice!  Dear me, sell the pictures and tell him about it afterwards . . . you can show him the summons—­”

“Ver’ goot.  Summons us.  Dot shall pe mine egscuse.  I shall show him der chudgment.”

Mme. Cibot went down to the court, and that very day at seven o’clock she called to Schmucke.  Schmucke found himself confronted with M. Tabareau the bailiff, who called upon him to pay.  Schmucke made answer, trembling from head to foot, and was forthwith summoned together with Pons, to appear in the county court to hear judgment against him.  The sight of the bailiff and a bit of stamped paper covered with scrawls produced such an effect upon Schmucke, that he held out no longer.

“Sell die bictures,” he said, with tears in his eyes.

Next morning, at six o’clock, Elie Magus and Remonencq took down the paintings of their choice.  Two receipts for two thousand five hundred francs were made out in correct form:—­

“I, the undersigned, representing M. Pons, acknowledge the receipt of two thousand five hundred francs from M. Elie Magus for the four pictures sold to him, the said sum being appropriated to the use of M. Pons.  The first picture, attributed to Durer, is a portrait of a woman; the second, likewise a portrait, is of the Italian School; the third, a Dutch landscape by Breughel; and the fourth, a Holy Family by an unknown master of the Florentine School.”

Remonencq’s receipt was worded in precisely the same way; a Greuze, a Claude Lorraine, a Rubens, and a Van Dyck being disguised as pictures of the French and Flemish schools.

“Der monny makes me beleef dot the chimcracks haf som value,” said Schmucke when the five thousand francs were paid over.

“They are worth something,” said Remonencq.  “I would willingly give you a hundred thousand francs for the lot.”

Remonencq, asked to do a trifling service, hung eight pictures of the proper size in the same frames, taking them from among the less valuable pictures in Schmucke’s bedroom.