“No—go in yourself.”
“But where is the use of the seals if M. Schmucke is in his own house and everything belongs to him?” asked La Sauvage, doing justice in feminine fashion, and interpreting the Code according to their fancy, like one and all of her sex.
“M. Schmucke is not in possession, madame; he is in M. Pons’ house. Everything will be his, no doubt; but the legatee cannot take possession without an authorization—an order from the Tribunal. And if the next-of-kin set aside by the testator should dispute the order, a lawsuit is the result. And as nobody knows what may happen, everything is sealed up, and the notaries representing either side proceed to draw up an inventory during the delay prescribed by the law.... And there you are!”
Schmucke, hearing such talk for the first time in his life, was completely bewildered by it; his head sank down upon the back of his chair—he could not support it, it had grown so heavy.
Villemot meanwhile went off to chat with the justice of the peace and his clerk, assisting with professional coolness to affix the seals—a ceremony which always involves some buffoonery and plentiful comments on the objects thus secured, unless, indeed, one of the family happens to be present. At length the party sealed up the chamber and returned to the dining-room, whither the clerk betook himself. Schmucke watched the mechanical operation which consists in setting the justice’s seal at either end of a bit of tape stretched across the opening of a folding-door; or, in the case of a cupboard or ordinary door, from edge to edge above the door-handle.
“Now for this room,” said Fraisier, pointing to Schmucke’s bedroom, which opened into the dining-room.
“But that is M. Schmucke’s own room,” remonstrated La Sauvage, springing in front of the door.
“We found the lease among the papers,” Fraisier said ruthlessly; “there was no mention of M. Schmucke in it; it is taken out in M. Pons’ name only. The whole place, and every room in it, is a part of the estate. And besides”—flinging open the door—“look here, monsieur le juge de la paix, it is full of pictures.”
“So it is,” answered the justice of the peace, and Fraisier thereupon gained his point.
“Wait a bit, gentlemen,” said Villemot. “Do you know that you are turning the universal legatee out of doors, and as yet his right has not been called in question?”