ut
with work, and two sisters--one of them very plain--who make
thirty-two sous a day while putting their eyes out. It will make up for
the misery you have caused at home, and you will expiate your sin while
you are having as much fun as a minx at Mabille."

Hulot, to put an end to this temptation, moved his fingers as if he
were counting out money.

"Oh! be quite easy as to ways and means," replied Josepha. "My Duke
will lend you ten thousand francs; seven thousand to start an
embroidery shop in Bijou's name, and three thousand for furnishing;
and every three months you will find a cheque here for six hundred and
fifty francs. When you get your pension paid you, you can repay the
seventeen thousand francs. Meanwhile you will be as happy as a cow in
clover, and hidden in a hole where the police will never find you. You
must wear a loose serge coat, and you will look like a comfortable
householder. Call yourself Thoul, if that is your fancy. I will tell
Bijou that you are an uncle of mine come from Germany, having failed
in business, and you will be cosseted like a divinity.--There now,
Daddy!--And who knows! you may have no regrets. In case you should be
bored, keep one Sunday rig-out, and you can come and ask me for a
dinner and spend the evening here."

"I!--and I meant to settle down and behave myself!--Look here, borrow
twenty thousand francs for me, and I will set out to make my fortune
in America, like my friend d'Aiglemont when Nucingen cleaned him out."

"You!" cried Josepha. "Nay, leave morals to work-a-day folks, to raw
recruits, to the _worrrthy_ citizens who have nothing to boast of but
their virtue. You! You were born to be something better than a
nincompoop; you are as a man what I am as a woman--a spendthrift of
genius."

"We will sleep on it and discuss it all to-morrow morning."

"You will dine with the Duke. My d'Herouville will receive you as
civilly as if you were the saviour of the State; and to-morrow you can
decide. Come, be jolly, old boy! Life is a garment; when it is dirty,
we must brush it; when it is ragged, it must be patched; but we keep
it on as long as we can."

This philosophy of life, and her high spirits, postponed Hulot's
keenest pangs.

At noon next day, after a capital breakfast, Hulot saw the arrival of
one of those living masterpieces which Paris alone of all the cities
in the world can produce, by means of the constant concubinage of
luxury and poverty, of vice and dec