This abuse did not, however, improve the situation, which was decidedly becoming bad.

Jean soon followed his sister's example.

He waited for pay-day to come round, and then contrived to receive the money himself.

As he was leaving he told one of his friends, who repeated it to Antoine, that he would no longer keep his lazy father, and that if the latter should take it into his head to have him brought back by the gendarmes he would touch neither saw nor plane.
On the morrow, when Antoine, having vainly sought him, found himself alone and penniless in the house where for twenty years he had been comfortably kept, he flew into the most frantic rage, kicked the furniture about, and yelled the vilest imprecations.

Then he sank down exhausted, and began to drag himself about and moan like a convalescent.
The fear of having to earn his bread made him positively ill.