[CHAPTER XXXVI]
AT MONTREAL
Next morning, after old Lecour had, with a heart full of content, and a pipeful of tobacco, taken his son the round of his warehouses and granaries, his piles of furs, his mountains of wheat, and the rising vaults of what was to be his newest and greatest building, they set off down the village street to the Notary's house.
D'Aguilhe was of a famous breed of notaries, who had driven the quill and handed it down from father to son from the earliest days of the colony. When Lecour discovered that he was founding St. Elphège, one of the first things he did was to jolt up to Montreal, and catch a young scion of this race of d'Aguilhes, and here he had kept him making a comfortable living at his profession ever since. It was therefore not improper that the man of the paraphe—and a wondrous paraphe his signature had, flourishing from edge to edge of a foolscap page, in woolly and laborious curves—should, when called upon next morning, treat his best client to his best office manners.
"Monsieur d'Aguilhe," commenced old Lecour, "here is my son, who thinks me a noble—and upon my honour I cannot argue against him; he is too able for me."
"Aha!" returned d'Aguilhe, pricking up his ears, and saying to himself, "This looks like something important."
"We desire," said Germain, taking the business into his own hands, "to see the marriage contract of my father and mother."
"Certainly, Monsieur Germain," he answered, and going to his cupboards, took his package of deeds for the year 1765, picked out the document and handed it to Germain, who read a few lines at the beginning.
"I see," the latter said, "that my father is improperly described here, as you will observe by these documents I now place before you. He is entitled to be called in this contract 'François Xavier LeCour, Chevalier de Lincy.'"
"A—ah!" exclaimed again the Notary, solemnly, raising his eyebrows and poking over Germain's parchments.