Madame Descoings did the same with her grandson, who was beginning to let fly certain witticisms; and although Philippe, so far, had not understood him, there was always a chance that one of the barbed arrows might piece the colonel's thick skull and put the sharp jester in peril.
"You must be tired," whispered Agathe in Philippe's ear; "come to bed." "Travel educates youth," said Bixiou, grinning, when Madame Bridau and the colonel had disappeared.
Joseph, who got up at dawn and went to bed early, did not see the end of the party.

The next morning Agathe and Madame Descoings, while preparing breakfast, could not help remarking that soires would be terribly expensive if Philippe were to go on playing that sort of game, as the Descoings phrased it.

The worthy old woman, then seventy-six years of age, proposed to sell her furniture, give up her _appartement_ on the second floor (which the owner was only too glad to occupy), and take Agathe's parlor for her chamber, making the other room a sitting-room and dining-room for the family.

In this way they could save seven hundred francs a year; which would enable them to give Philippe fifty francs a month until he could find something to do.

Agathe accepted the sacrifice.