"Oh!" exclaimed Max, "I want time to study them. Meantime, I offer my best shotgun--the one the Emperor gave me, a treasure from the manufactory at Versailles--to whoever finds a way to play the Bridaus a trick which shall get them into difficulties with Madame and Monsieur Hochon, so that those worthy old people shall send them off, or they shall be forced to go of their own accord,--without, understand me, injuring the venerable ancestors of my two friends here present, Baruch and Francois."
"All right! I'll think of it," said Goddet, who coveted the gun.
"If the inventor of the trick doesn't care for the gun, he shall have my horse," added Max.
After this night twenty brains were tortured to lay a plot against Agathe and her son, on the basis of Max's programme. But the devil alone, or chance, could really help them to success; for the conditions given made the thing well-nigh impossible.
The next morning Agathe and Joseph came downstairs just before the second breakfast, which took place at ten o'clock. In Monsieur Hochon's household the name of first breakfast was given to a cup of milk and slice of bread and butter which was taken in bed, or when rising. While waiting for Madame Hochon, who notwithstanding her age went minutely through the ceremonies with which the duchesses of Louis XV.'s time performed their toilette, Joseph noticed Jean-Jacques Rouget planted squarely on his feet at the door of his house across the street. He naturally pointed him out to his mother, who was unable to recognize her brother, so little did he look like what he was when she left him.
"That is your brother," said Adolphine, who entered, giving an arm to her grandmother.
"What an idiot he looks like!" exclaimed Joseph.
Agathe clasped her hands, and raised her eyes to heaven.
"What a state they have driven him to! Good God! can that be a man only fifty-seven years old?"
She looked attentively at her brother, and saw Flore Brazier standing directly behind him, with her hair dressed, a pair of snowy shoulders and a dazzling bosom showing through a gauze neckerchief, which was trimmed with lace; she was wearing a dress with a tight-fitting waist, made of grenadine (a silk material then much in fashion), with leg-of- mutton sleeves so-called, fastened at the wrists by handsome bracelets. A gold chain rippled over the crab-girl's bosom as she leaned forward to give Jean-Jacques his black silk cap lest he should take cold. The scene was evidently studied.
"Hey!" cried Joseph, "there's a fine woman, and a rare one! She is made, as they say, to paint. What flesh-tints! Oh, the lovely tones! what surface! what curves! Ah, those shoulders! She's a magnificent caryatide. What a model she would have been for one of Titians' Venuses!"
Adolphine and Madame Hochon thought he was talking Greek; but Agathe signed to them behind his back, as if to say that she was accustomed to such jargon.
"So you think a creature who is depriving you of your property handsome?" said Madame Hochon.
"That doesn't prevent her from being a splendid model!--just plump enough not to spoil the hips and the general contour--"
"My son, you are not in your studio," said Agathe. "Adolphine is here."
"Ah, true! I did wrong. But you must remember that ever since leaving Paris I have seen nothing but ugly women--"
"My dear godmother," said Agathe hastily, "how shall I be able to meet my brother, if that creature is always with him?"
"Bah!" said Joseph. "I'll go and see him myself. I don't think him such an idiot, now I find he has the sense to rejoice his eyes with a Titian's Venus."
"If he were not an idiot," said Monsieur Hochon, who had come in, "he would have married long ago and had children; and then you would have no chance at the property. It is an ill wind that blows no good."
"Your son's idea is very good," said Madame Hochon; "he ought to pay the first visit. He can make his uncle understand that if you call there he must be alone."
"That will affront Mademoiselle Brazier," said old Hochon. "No, no, madame; swallow the pill. If you can't get the whole property, secure a small legacy."
The Hochons were not clever enough to match Max. In the middle of breakfast Kouski brought over a letter from Monsieur Rouget, addressed to his sister, Madame Bridau. Madame Hochon made her husband read it aloud, as follows:--
My dear Sister,--I learn from strangers of your arrival in Issoudun. I can guess the reason which made you prefer the house of Monsieur and Madame Hochon to mine; but if you will come to see me you shall be received as you ought to be. I should certainly pay you the first visit if my health did not compel me just now to keep the house; for which I offer my affectionate regrets. I shall be delighted to see my nephew, whom I invite to dine with me to- morrow,--young men are less sensitive than women about the company. It will give me pleasure if Messrs. Baruch Borniche and Francois Hochon will accompany him.
Your affectionate brother, J.-J. Rouget.
"Say that we are at breakfast, but that Madame Bridau will send an answer presently, and the invitations are all accepted," said Monsieur Hochon to the servant.
The old man laid a finger on his lips, to require silence from everybody. When the street-door was shut, Monsieur Hochon, little suspecting the intimacy between his grandsons and Max, threw one of his slyest looks at his wife and Agathe, remarking,--
"He is just as capable of writing that note as I am of giving away twenty-five louis; it is the soldier who is corresponding with us!"
"What does that portend?" asked Madame Hochon. "Well, never mind; we will answer him. As for you, monsieur," she added, turning to Joseph, "you must dine there; but if--"