Flore and Max, had fraternized with the soldier, and thought
him the best fellow on earth. Joseph returned home at eleven o'clock
somewhat tipsy. As to old Rouget, Kouski had carried him to his bed
dead-drunk; he had eaten as though he were an actor from foreign parts,
and had soaked up the wine like the sands of the desert.

"Well," said Max when he was alone with Flore, "isn't this better than
making faces at them? The Bridaus are well received, they get small
presents, and are smothered with attentions, and the end of it is they
will sing our praises; they will go away satisfied and leave us in
peace. To-morrow morning you and I and Kouski will take down all those
pictures and send them over to the painter, so that he shall see them
when he wakes up. We will put the frames in the garret, and cover the
walls with one of those varnished papers which represent scenes from
Telemachus, such as I have seen at Monsieur Mouilleron's."

"Oh, that will be much prettier!" said Flore.

On the morrow, Joseph did not wake up till midday. From his bed he saw
the pictures, which had been brought in while he was asleep, leaning
one against another on the opposite wall. While he examined them anew,
recognizing each masterpiece, studying the manner of each painter, and
searching for the signature, his mother had gone to see and thank her
brother, urged thereto by old Hochon, who, having heard of the follies
the painter had committed the night before, almost despaired of the
Bridau cause.

"Your adversaries have the cunning of foxes," he said to Agathe. "In
all my days I never saw a man carry things with such a high hand as
that soldier; they say war educates young men! Joseph has let himself
be fooled. They have shut his mouth with wine, and those miserable
pictures, and four thousand francs! Your artist hasn't cost Maxence
much!"

The long-headed old man instructed Madame Bridau carefully as to
the line of conduct she ought to pursue,--advising her to enter into
Maxence's ideas and cajole Flore, so as to set up a sort of intimacy
with her, and thus obtain a few moments' interview with Jean-Jacques
alone. Madame Bridau was very warmly received by her brother, to whom
Flore had taught his lesson. The old man was in bed, quite ill from the
excesses of the night before. As Agathe, under the circumstances, could
scarcely begin at once to speak of family matters, Max thought it proper
and magnanimous to leave the brother and sister al