The shrewd sense of an artist led him to conceal the profits he was beginning to lay by from his mother and Madame Descoings, aware that each had her road to ruin,--the one in Philippe, the other in the lottery.

This astuteness is seldom wanting among painters; busy for days together in the solitude of their studios, engaged in work which, up to a certain point, leaves the mind free, they are in some respects like women,--their thoughts turn about the little events of life, and they contrive to get at their hidden meaning.
Joseph had bought one of those magnificent chests or coffers of a past age, then ignored by fashion, with which he decorated a corner of his studio, where the light danced upon the bas-reliefs and gave full lustre to a masterpiece of the sixteenth century artisans.

He saw the necessity for a hiding-place, and in this coffer he had begun to accumulate a little store of money.

With an artist's carelessness, he was in the habit of putting the sum he allowed for his monthly expenses in a skull, which stood on one of the compartments of the coffer.

Since his brother had returned to live at home, he found a constant discrepancy between the amount he spent and the sum in this receptacle.