hile playing, left the place in a drunken state, which the
cold of the outer air only increased. A waiter from the gambling-house
followed him, picked him up, and took him to one of those horrible
houses at the door of which, on a hanging lamp, are the words:
"Lodgings for the night." The waiter paid for the ruined gambler, who
was put to bed, where he remained till Christmas night. The managers
of gambling-houses have some consideration for their customers,
especially for high players. Philippe awoke about seven o'clock in the
evening, his mouth parched, his face swollen, and he himself in the
grip of a nervous fever. The strength of his constitution enabled him
to get home on foot, where meanwhile he had, without willing it,
brought mourning, desolation, poverty, and death.

The evening before, when dinner was ready, Madame Descoings and Agathe
expected Philippe. They waited dinner till seven o'clock. Agathe
always went to bed at ten; but as, on this occasion, she wished to be
present at the midnight mass, she went to lie down as soon as dinner
was over. Madame Descoings and Joseph remained alone by the fire in
the little salon, which served for all, and the old woman asked the
painter to add up the amount of her great stake, her monstrous stake,
on the famous trey, which she was to pay that evening at the Lottery
office. She wished to put in for the doubles and singles as well, so
as to seize all chances. After feasting on the poetry of her hopes,
and pouring the two horns of plenty at the feet of her adopted son,
and relating to him her dreams which demonstrated the certainty of
success, she felt no other uneasiness than the difficulty of bearing
such joy, and waiting from mid-night until ten o'clock of the morrow,
when the winning numbers were declared. Joseph, who saw nothing of the
four hundred francs necessary to pay up the stakes, asked about them.
The old woman smiled, and led him into the former salon, which was now
her bed-chamber.

"You shall see," she said.

Madame Descoings hastily unmade the bed, and searched for her scissors
to rip the mattress; she put on her spectacles, looked at the ticking,
saw the hole, and let fall the mattress. Hearing a sigh from the
depths of the old woman's breast, as though she were strangled by a
rush of blood to the heart, Joseph instinctively held out his arms to
catch the poor creature, and placed her fainting in a chair, calling
to his mother to come to them. Agathe r