inning for
awhile, he began to lose; and by eleven o'clock he owed fifty francs
to young Desroches and to Bixiou. The racket and the disputes at the
ecarte table resounded more than once in the ears of the more peaceful
boston players, who were watching Philippe surreptitiously. The exile
showed such signs of bad temper that in his final dispute with the
younger Desroches, who was none too amiable himself, the elder
Desroches joined in, and though his son was decidedly in the right, he
declared he was in the wrong, and forbade him to play any more. Madame
Descoings did the same with her grandson, who was beginning to let fly
certain witticisms; and although Philippe, so far, had not understood
him, there was always a chance that one of the barbed arrows might
piece the colonel's thick skull and put the sharp jester in peril.

"You must be tired," whispered Agathe in Philippe's ear; "come to
bed."

"Travel educates youth," said Bixiou, grinning, when Madame Bridau and
the colonel had disappeared.

Joseph, who got up at dawn and went to bed early, did not see the end
of the party. The next morning Agathe and Madame Descoings, while
preparing breakfast, could not help remarking that soires would be
terribly expensive if Philippe were to go on playing that sort of
game, as the Descoings phrased it. The worthy old woman, then
seventy-six years of age, proposed to sell her furniture, give up her
_appartement_ on the second floor (which the owner was only too glad to
occupy), and take Agathe's parlor for her chamber, making the other
room a sitting-room and dining-room for the family. In this way they
could save seven hundred francs a year; which would enable them to
give Philippe fifty francs a month until he could find something to
do. Agathe accepted the sacrifice. When the colonel came down and his
mother had asked how he liked his little bedroom, the two widows
explained to him the situation of the family. Madame Descoings and
Agathe possessed, by putting all their resources together, an income
of five thousand three hundred francs, four thousand of which belonged
to Madame Descoings and were merely a life annuity. The Descoings made
an allowance of six hundred a year to Bixiou, whom she had
acknowledged as her grandson during the last few months, also six
hundred to Joseph; the rest of her income, together with that of
Agathe, was spent for the household wants. All their savings were by
this time eaten up.

"Make y