“So that he told me, that poor Monsieur Maillard, ‘Go find the coadjutor, Friquet, and if you bring him to me you shall be my heir.’ Say, then, Father Bazin—the heir of Monsieur Maillard, the giver of holy water at Saint Eustache! Hey! I shall have nothing to do but to fold my arms! All the same, I should like to do him that service—what do you say to it?”
“I will tell the coadjutor,” said Bazin.
In fact, he slowly and respectfully approached the prelate and spoke to him privately a few words, to which the latter responded by an affirmative sign. He then returned with the same slow step and said:
“Go and tell the dying man that he must be patient. Monseigneur will be with him in an hour.”
“Good!” said Friquet, “my fortune is made.”
“By the way,” said Bazin, “where was he carried?”
“To the tower Saint Jacques la Boucherie;” and delighted with the success of his embassy, Friquet started off at the top of his speed.
When the Te Deum was over, the coadjutor, without stopping to change his priestly dress, took his way toward that old tower which he knew so well. He arrived in time. Though sinking from moment to moment, the wounded man was not yet dead. The door was opened to the coadjutor of the room in which the mendicant was suffering.
A moment later Friquet went out, carrying in his hand a large leather bag; he opened it as soon as he was outside the chamber and to his great astonishment found it full of gold. The mendicant had kept his word and made Friquet his heir.
“Ah! Mother Nanette!” cried Friquet, suffocating; “ah! Mother Nanette!”