“I should think he will!” returned Mme. Sauvage. “He has been crying for twenty-four hours on end, and he would not take anything. There is nothing like grief for giving one a sinking in the stomach.”
“My dear client,” urged the representative of the firm of Sonet, “do take some broth. You have so much to do; some one must go to the Hotel de Ville to buy the ground in the cemetery on which you mean to erect a monument to perpetuate the memory of the friend of the arts, and bear record to your gratitude.”
“Why, there is no sense in this!” added Mme. Cantinet, coming in with broth and bread.
“If you are as weak as this, you ought to think of finding some one to act for you,” added Remonencq, “for you have a good deal on your hands, my dear sir. There is the funeral to order. You would not have your friend buried like a pauper!”
“Come, come, my dear sir,” put in La Sauvage, seizing a moment when Schmucke laid his head back in the great chair to pour a spoonful of soup into his mouth. She fed him as if he had been a child, and almost in spite of himself.
“Now, if you were wise, sir, since you are inclined to give yourself up quietly to grief, you would find some one to act for you—”
“As you are thinking of raising a magnificent monument to the memory of your friend, sir, you have only to leave it all to me; I will undertake—”
“What is all this? What is all this?” asked La Sauvage. “Has M. Schmucke ordered something? Who may you be?”
“I represent the firm of Sonet, my dear madame, the biggest monumental stone-masons in Paris,” said the person in black, handing a business-card to the stalwart Sauvage.
“Very well, that will do. Some one will go with you when the time comes; but you must not take advantage of the gentleman’s condition now. You can quite see that he is not himself——”