EVER since Haslan was a duke’s residence there was no record of anything having been looked forward to with such curiosity--excepting the birth of a hereditary prince--as the opening of Van der Kabel’s last will and testament. Van der Kabel might have been called the Crœsus of Haslan, and his life a comedy of coins. Seven distant relatives of seven deceased distant relatives of Kabel’s indulged in some little hope of a place in the testament, the Crœsus having sworn to remember them there; but the hope was a faint one, as he seemed not greatly to be trusted, not only because he was in the habit of managing his affairs in a grimly moral and unselfish manner--in matters of morality the seven relatives were but beginners--but also because he handled things in so cynical a spirit, and with a heart so full of traps and snares that there was no depending upon him. The continuous smile about his temples and thick lips, and his shrill sneering voice, impaired the good impression which his nobly-formed features and a pair of large hands, dropping New Year’s gifts and benefits every day, might have made; therefore the swarms of birds declared this man, this living fruit-tree, which furnished them with food and nests, to be a secret snare, and would not see the visible berries for invisible nooses. Between two strokes of paralysis he had dictated his testament, and entrusted it to the magistrate. When in a half-dying state he handed the receipt of deposit to the seven heirs-presumptive, he said, in his old tone, that he should greatly deplore it if this sign of his approaching decease would strike down sensible men, whom he liked to picture as laughing heirs rather than as weeping ones.