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The kind-hearted creature went to sleep after charging her maid to carry the little note to Desroches' office before seven o'clock in the morning. Godeschal, on his side, getting up at six and finding that Oscar had not returned, guessed what had happened.
He must, however, in the first instance, gain an entrance to Desroches, and get some light on the actual situation of his enemies. Godeschal, by reason of the intimacy still existing between the former clerk and his old master, could be his go-between.
"Godeschal!" cried Oscar, who thought his mother's suggestion excellent. But Godeschal, who, like all clerks, has his time to himself on Sundays, from ten to two o'clock, had already departed. When his mother left him, Oscar went to lounge upon the boulevards until it was time to go to Georges Marest's breakfast.
The following day, at two o'clock, a young man entered the office, whom Oscar recognized as Georges Marest, now head-clerk of the notary Hannequin. "Ha! here's the friend of Ali pacha!" he exclaimed in a flippant way. "Hey! you here, Monsieur l'ambassadeur!" returned Georges, recollecting Oscar. "So you know each other?" said Godeschal, addressing Georges. "I should think so!
Now, la Peyrade, a shrewd man, had worn his legal gown about the Palais long enough to know how these judicial morals might be made to serve his purpose. "Sit in the carriage," he said to Thuillier, when they reached the rue Vivienne, where Godeschal was now master of the practice he had formerly served as clerk. "You needn't show yourself until he undertakes the affair."
That ripple of greed reached the attorney. "M. le President left a message with me," she said; "he hopes that you will dine with us to-morrow. It will be a family party. M. Godeschal, Desroches' successor and my attorney, will come to meet you, and Berthier, our notary, and my daughter and son-in-law.
You may think that in acting thus I am trying to fasten upon this affair no, no, madame; there may be reprehensible things done; with an inheritance in view one is dragged on... especially with nine hundred thousand francs in the balance. Well, now, you could not disavow a man like Maitre Godeschal, honesty itself, but you can throw all the blame on the back of a miserable pettifogging lawyer "
When the attorneys of Paris have ties like those which bound Godeschal and Desroches together, they live in true fraternity, and the result is a facility in arranging any matters which are, as one may say, arrangeable.
"What do you think of that for a cracked pot?" said Simonnin, without waiting till the old man had shut the door. "He looks as if he had been buried and dug up again," said a clerk. "He is some colonel who wants his arrears of pay," said the head clerk. "No, he is a retired concierge," said Godeschal. "I bet you he is a nobleman," cried Boucard.
At a council held with Fraisier, Berthier, and Godeschal, the two last-named authorities gave it as their opinion that it was hopeless to dispute a will drawn up by two notaries in the presence of two witnesses, so precisely was the instrument worded by Leopold Hannequin.
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