There are Strasburg pies, there, and bags of coffee, and sugar, and
gold spoons. Give the Odiot service to your wife. But who is to have
the diamonds? Are you going to take them, lad? There is snuff too
--sell it at Hamburg, tobaccos are worth half as much again at Hamburg.
All sorts of things I have in fact, and now I must go and leave them
all.--Come, Papa Gobseck, no weakness, be yourself!'

"He raised himself in bed, the lines of his face standing out as
sharply against the pillow as if the profile had been cast in bronze;
he stretched out a lean arm and bony hand along the coverlet and
clutched it, as if so he would fain keep his hold on life, then he
gazed hard at the grate, cold as his own metallic eyes, and died in
full consciousness of death. To us--the portress, the old pensioner,
and myself--he looked like one of the old Romans standing behind the
Consuls in Lethiere's picture of the _Death of the Sons of Brutus_.

"'He was a good-plucked one, the old Lascar!' said the pensioner in
his soldierly fashion.

"But as for me, the dying man's fantastical enumeration of his riches
still sounding in my ears, and my eyes, following the direction of
his, rested on that heap of ashes. It struck me that it was very
large. I took the tongs, and as soon as I stirred the cinders, I felt
the metal underneath, a mass of gold and silver coins, receipts taken
during his illness, doubtless, after he grew too feeble to lock the
money up, and could trust no one to take it to the bank for him.

"'Run for the justice of the peace,' said I, turning to the old
pensioner, 'so that everything can be sealed here at once.'