long."
"Ah! you are young; you know nothing of the world," said the old lady.

"A couple of weeks, if you are judicious, may produce great results;
listen to my advice, and act accordingly."

"Oh! willingly," said Joseph, "I know I have a perfectly amazing
incapacity for domestic statesmanship: for example, I am sure I don't

know what Desroches himself would tell us to do if my uncle declines
to see us."

Mesdames Borniche, Goddet-Herau, Beaussier, Lousteau-Prangin and
Fichet, decorated with their husbands, here entered the room.

When the fourteen persons were seated, and the usual compliments were
over, Madame Hochon presented her goddaughter Agathe and Joseph.

Joseph sat in his armchair all the evening, engaged in slyly studying
the sixty faces which, from five o'clock until half past nine, posed

for him gratis, as he afterwards told his mother. Such behavior before
the aristocracy of Issoudun did not tend to change the opinion of the

little town concerning him: every one went home ruffled by his
sarcastic glances, uneasy under his smiles, and even frightened at his

face, which seemed sinister to a class of people unable to recognize
the singularities of genius.

After ten o'clock, when the household was in bed, Madame Hochon kept
her goddaughter in her chamber until midnight. Secure from

interruption, the two women told each other the sorrows of their
lives, and exchanged their sufferings. As Agathe listened to the last

echoes of a soul that had missed its destiny, and felt the sufferings
of a heart, essentially" target="_blank" title="ad.本质上，基本上">essentiallygenerous and charitable, whose charity and

generosity could never be exercised, she realized the immensity of the
desert in which the powers of this noble, unrecognized soul had been

wasted, and knew that she herself, with the little joys and interests
of her city life relieving the bitter trials sent from God, was not

the most unhappy of the two.
"You who are so pious," she said, "explain to me my shortcomings; tell

me what it is that God is punishing in me."
"He is preparing us, my child," answered the old woman, "for the

striking of the last hour."
At midnight the Knights of Idleness were collecting, one by one like

shadows, under the trees of the boulevard Baron, and speaking together
in whispers.

"What are we going to do?" was the first question of each as he
arrived.

"I think," said Francois, "that Max means merely to give us a supper."
"No; matters are very serious for him, and for the Rabouilleuse: no

doubt, he has concocted some scheme against the Parisians."
"It would be a good joke to drive them away."

"My grandfather," said Baruch, "is terribly alarmed at having two
extra mouths to feed, and he'd seize on any pretext--"

"Well, comrades!" cried Max softly, now appearing on the scene, "why
are you star-gazing? the planets don't distil kirschwasser. Come, let

us go to Mere Cognette's!"
"To Mere Cognette's! To Mere Cognette's!" they all cried.

The cry, uttered as with one voice, produced a clamor which rang
through the town like the hurrah of troops rushing to an assault;

total silence followed. The next day, more than one inhabitant must
have said to his neighbor: "Did you hear those frightful cries last

night, about one o'clock? I thought there was surely a fire
somewhere."

A supper worthy of La Cognette brightened the faces of the twenty-two
guests; for the whole Order was present. At two in the morning, as

they were beginning to "siroter" (a word in the vocabulary of the
Knights which admirably expresses the act of sipping and tasting the

wine in small quantities), Max rose to speak:--
"My dear fellows! the honor of your grand master was grossly attacked

this morning, after our memorable joke with Fario's cart,--attacked by
a vile pedler, and what is more, a Spaniard (oh, Cabrera!); and I have

resolved to make the scoundrel feel the weight of my vengeance;
always, of course, within the limits we have laid down for our fun.

After reflecting about it all day, I have found a trick which is worth
putting into execution,--a famous trick, that will drive him crazy.

While avenging the insult offered to the Order in my person, we shall
be feeding the sacred animals of the Egyptians,--little beasts which

are, after all, the creatures of God, and which man unjustly
persecutes. Thus we see that good is the child of evil, and evil is

the offspring of good; such is the paramount law of the universe! I
now order you all, on pain of displeasing your very humble grand

master, to procure clandestinely, each one of you, twenty rats, male
or female as heaven pleases. Collect your contingent within three

days. If you can get more, the surplus will be welcome. Keep the
interesting rodents without food; for it is essential that the

delightful little beasts be ravenous with hunger. Please observe that
I will accept both house-mice and field-mice as rats. If we multiply

twenty-two by twenty, we shall have four hundred; four hundred
accomplices let loose in the old church of the Capuchins, where Fario

has stored all his grain, will consume a not insignificant quantity!
But be lively about it! There's no time to lose. Fario is to deliver

most of the grain to his customers in a week or so; and I am
determined that that Spaniard shall find a terrible deficit.

Gentlemen, I have not the merit of this invention," continued Max,
observing the signs of general admiration. "Render to Caesar that

which is Caesar's, and to God that which is God's. My scheme is only a
reproduction of Samson's foxes, as related in the Bible. But Samson

was an incendiary, and therefore no philanthropist; while we, like the
Brahmins, are the protectors of a persecuted race. Mademoiselle Flore

Brazier has already set all her mouse-traps, and Kouski, my right-arm,
is hunting field-mice. I have spoken."

"I know," said Goddet, "where to find an animal that's worth forty
rats, himself alone."

"What's that?"
"A squirrel."

"I offer a little monkey," said one of the younger members, "he'll
make himself drunk on wheat."

"Bad, very bad!" exclaimed Max, "it would show who put the beasts
there."

"But we might each catch a pigeon some night," said young Beaussier,
"taking them from different farms; if we put them through a hole in

the roof, they'll attract thousands of others."
"So, then, for the next week, Fario's storehouse is the order of the

night," cried Max, smiling at Beaussier. "Recollect; people get up
early in Saint-Paterne. Mind, too, that none of you go there without

turning the soles of your list shoes backward. Knight Beaussier, the
inventor of pigeons, is made director. As for me, I shall take care to

leave my imprint on the sacks of wheat. Gentlemen, you are, all of
you, appointed to the commissariat of the Army of Rats. If you find a

watchman sleeping in the church, you must manage to make him drunk,--
and do it cleverly,--so as to get him far away from the scene of the

Rodents' Orgy."
"You don't say anything about the Parisians?" questioned Goddet.

"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