“Gentlemen, the merit of this invention is not mine,” he went on, noting signs of general approbation. “ ‘Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.’ This is an imitation of Samson’s foxes in the Bible. But Samson was an incendiary, and consequently not a philanthropist; while we, like the Brahmins, are the protectors of a persecuted race. Mademoiselle Flore Brazier has already set all her mousetraps, and Kouski, my right hand, is hunting field-mice—I have spoken.”
“I know,” said Goddet junior, “where to get an animal as good as forty rats single-handed.”
“What?”
“A squirrel.”
“And I can contribute a small monkey who will eat corn till he bursts,” said a novice.
“No good!” said Max. “It will be known where the beasts come from.”
“In the course of the night,” said young Beaussier, “we might bring in one pigeon from the pigeon-house of each farm in the neighborhood, by putting it through a hole made in the roof, and there soon would be thousands of pigeons.”
“Well, then, for a week Fario’s corn-store is the order of the night,” said Gilet, smiling at the tall youth Beaussier junior. “You know that they are astir early at Saint-Paterne. Mind no one is to go there without having put the soles of his list-shoes on hind part before. Our good knight Beaussier, the inventor of the pigeon trick, takes the command. For my part, I will take care to leave my mark on the grain. I leave it to you to be quartermasters general to the forces of rats. If the shop-boy sleeps in the old church, his companions must make him drunk; and do it cleverly, so as to get him far away from the banquet to be provided for the rodents.”
“And you say nothing about the Parisians?” asked Goddet.
“Oh!” said Max, “they must be studied. At the same time, I will give my fine fowling-piece, that came to me from the Emperor, a first-class article from the Versailles factory—it is worth two thousand francs—to anyone who will hit upon a plan for playing these Parisians some trick to get them into such bad odor with Monsieur and Madame Hochon that the old folks should pack them off, or that they should go of their own accord; without causing too much annoyance, however, to the ancestors of my good friends François and Baruch.”
“All right, I will think it over,” said young Goddet, who was passionately addicted to shooting.
“And if the inventor of the ploy does not want the gun, he may have my horse,” added Maxence.
Thenceforth twenty brains were vainly racked to concoct some plot against Agathe and her son, in conformity with this programme. But the devil alone, or some chance, could succeed; the conditions of the case made it so difficult.
Next morning Agathe and Joseph came downstairs a minute before the second breakfast at ten o’clock. The meal called the first breakfast consisted of a cup of milk and a slice of bread and butter, eaten in bed, or on getting up.
While waiting for Madame Hochon, who, in spite of old age, carefully went through all the ceremonies employed in their toilet by the duchesses of Louis XV’s reign, Joseph saw, on the threshold of the house opposite, Jean-Jacques Rouget standing squarely in the doorway. He, naturally, pointed him out to his mother, who could not recognize her brother, so little was he like what he had been when they parted.
“There is your brother,” said Adolphine, who had given her grandmother her arm.
“What an idiot!” cried Joseph.
Agathe clasped her hands and looked up to Heaven.
“What have they brought him to? Good Heavens! is that a man of fifty-seven?”
She wished to look at him attentively, and then saw Flore Brazier come up behind him, her hair dressed without a cap, and displaying, through the gauze of a kerchief trimmed with lace, snowy shoulders and a dazzling bosom; she was dressed as elaborately as a rich courtesan, wearing a tightly-fitting gown of grenadine—a silk stuff then very fashionable—with gigot sleeves, and magnificent bracelets on her wrists. A gold chain meandered over the bodice of la Rabouilleuse, who had brought Jean-Jacques his black silk cap that he might not catch cold—it was evidently a got-up scene.
“What a lovely woman!” cried Joseph. “Of a rare kind, too! Made to be painted, as we say! What flesh-tints, what splendid coloring! What a skin, what curves, and what shoulders! She is a magnificent Caryatid! And a perfect model for a Titian’s Venus!”
To Adolphine and Madame Hochon this might have been Greek; but Agathe, behind her son, made a sign to them as much as to say that she was accustomed to this jargon.
“You think a woman lovely who is robbing you of a fortune!” exclaimed Madame Hochon.
“That does not prevent her being a splendid model! Exactly full enough, without the hips or bust having become coarse—”
“My dear, you are not in your studio,” said Agathe. “Adolphine is here—”
“To be sure, I beg pardon; but, really, all the way from Paris along the road I saw none but apes—”
“But my dear godmother,” said Agathe, “how can I see my brother? For if that
