"You know very well, young man, what we want! We are informed that your grandfather has left this house with a covered litter.That's not surprising; he had the right to do so.But I am the sheriff, and Ihave come to seize everything he has left.On Monday he received a summons to pay three thousand francs, with interest and costs, to Monsieur Metivier, under pain of arrest for debt duly notified to him, and like an old stager who is up to the tricks of his own trade, he has walked off just in time.However, if we can't catch him, his furniture hasn't taken wings.You see we know all about it, young man.""Here are the stamped papers your grandpapa didn't choose to take,"said Madame Vauthier, thrusting three writs into Auguste's hand.
"Remain here, madame," said the sheriff; "we shall make you legal guardian of the property.The law gives you forty sous a day, and that's not to be sneezed at.""Ha! now I shall see the inside of that fine bedroom!" cried the Vauthier.
"You shall not go into my mother's room!" said the young lad, in a threatening voice, springing between the door and the three men in black.
At a sign from the sheriff, two of the men seized Auguste.
"No resistance, young man; you are not master here," said the sheriff.
"We shall draw up the proces-verbal, and you will sleep in jail."Hearing that dreadful word, Auguste burst into tears.
"Ah, how fortunate," he cried, "that mamma has gone! It would have killed her."A conference now took place between the sheriff, the other men, and Vauthier, by which Auguste discovered, although they spoke in a low voice, that his grandfather's manuscripts were what they chiefly wanted.On that, he opened the door of his mother's bedroom.
"Go in," he said, "but take care to do no injury.You will be paid to-morrow morning."Then he went off weeping into the lair, seized his grandfather's notes and stuck them into the stove, in which, as he knew very well, there was not a spark of fire.
The thing was done so rapidly that the sheriff--a sly, keen fellow, worthy of his clients Barbet and Metivier--found the lad weeping in his chair when he entered the wretched room, after assuring himself that the manuscripts were not in the antechamber.
Though it is not permissible to seize books or manuscripts for debt, the bill of sale which Monsieur Bernard had made of his work justified this proceeding.It was, however, easy to oppose various delays to this seizure, and Monsieur Bernard, had he been there, would not have failed to do so.For that reason the whole affair had been conducted slyly.Madame Vauthier had not attempted to give the writs to Monsieur Bernard; she meant to have flung them into the room on entering behind the sheriff's men, so to give the appearance of their being in the old man's possession.
The proces-verbal of the seizure took an hour to write down; the sheriff omitted nothing, and declared that the value of the property seized was sufficient to pay the debt.As soon as he and his men had departed, Auguste took the writs and rushed to the hospital to find his grandfather.The sheriff having told him that Madame Vauthier was now responsible, under heavy penalties, for the safety of the property, he could leave the house without fear of robbery.
The idea of his grandfather being dragged to prison for debt drove the poor lad, if not exactly crazy, at any rate as crazy as youth becomes under one of those dangerous and fatal excitements in which all powers ferment at once, and lead as often to evil actions as to heroic deeds.
When he reached the rue Basse-Saint-Pierre, the porter told him that he did not know what had become of the father of the lady who had arrived that afternoon; the orders of Monsieur Halpersohn were to admit no one to see her for the next eight days, under pain of putting her life in danger.
This answer brought Auguste's exasperation to a crisis.He returned to the boulevard du Mont-Parnasse, turning over in his mind the wildest and most extravagant plans of action.He reached home at half-past eight o'clock, half famished, and so exhausted with hunger and distress that he listened to Madame Vauthier when she asked him to share her supper, which happened to be a mutton stew with potatoes.
The poor lad fell half dead upon a chair in that atrocious woman's room.
Persuaded by the wheedling and honeyed words of the old vulture, he replied to a few questions about Godefroid which she adroitly put to him, letting her discover that it was really her other lodger who was to pay his grandfather's debts the next day, and also that it was to him they owed the improvement in their condition during the past week.
The widow listened to these confidences with a dubious air, plying Auguste with several glasses of wine meantime.
About ten o'clock a cab stopped before the house, and Madame Vauthier looking out exclaimed:--"Oh! it is Monsieur Godefroid."
Auguste at once took the key of his apartment and went up to meet the protector of his family; but he found Godefroid's face and manner so changed that he hesitated to address him until, generous lad that he was, the thought of his grandfather's danger came over him and gave him courage.