Bourbons."

"Then it will be very difficult for you to find him a place in France.
If he won't re-enter the army, he can't be readily got into government
employ," said old Du Bruel. "And you have only to listen to him to see
he could never, like my son, make his fortune by writing plays."

The motion of Agathe's eyes, with which alone she replied to this
speech, showed how anxious Philippe's future made her; they all kept
silence. The exile himself, Bixiou, and the younger Desroches were
playing at ecarte, a game which was then the rage.

"Maman Descoings, my brother has no money to play with," whispered
Joseph in the good woman's ear.

The devotee of the Royal Lottery fetched twenty francs and gave them
to the artist, who slipped them secretly into his brother's hand. All
the company were now assembled. There were two tables of boston; and
the party grew lively. Philippe proved a bad player: after winning for
awhile, he began to lose; and by eleven o'clock he owed fifty francs
to young Desroches and to Bixiou. The racket and the disputes at the
ecarte table resounded more than once in the ears of the more peaceful
boston players, who were watching Philippe surreptitiously. The exile
showed such signs of bad temper that in his final dispute with the
younger Desroches, who was none too amiable himself, the elder
Desroches joined in, and though his son was decidedly in the right, he
declared he was in the wrong, and forbade him to play any more. 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