“If you kill that monster who has corrupted my grandsons, I shall say you have done a good deed.”

“Thanks to me, the town of Issoudun now knows what Monsieur Maxence Gilet has been doing at night for the last six years,” replied Philippe; “and the cackle, as you call it here, is now started on him.  Morally his day is over.”

The moment Philippe left his uncle’s house Flore went to Max’s room to tell him every particular of the nephew’s bold visit.

“What’s to be done?” she asked.

“Before trying the last means,—­which will be to fight that big reprobate,” replied Maxence, “—­we must play double or quits, and try our grand stroke.  Let the old idiot go with his nephew.”

“But that big brute won’t mince matters,” remonstrated Flore; “he’ll call things by their right names.”

“Listen to me,” said Maxence in a harsh voice.  “Do you think I’ve not kept my ears open, and reflected about how we stand?  Send to Pere Cognette for a horse and a char-a-banc, and say we want them instantly:  they must be here in five minutes.  Pack all your belongings, take Vedie, and go to Vatan.  Settle yourself there as if you mean to stay; carry off the twenty thousand francs in gold which the old fellow has got in his drawer.  If I bring him to you in Vatan, you are to refuse to come back here unless he signs the power of attorney.  As soon as we get it I’ll slip off to Paris, while you’re returning to Issoudun.  When Jean-Jacques gets back from his walk and finds you gone, he’ll go beside himself, and want to follow you.  Well! when he does, I’ll give him a talking to.”

CHAPTER XV

While the foregoing plot was progressing, Philippe was walking arm in arm with his uncle along the boulevard Baron.

“The two great tacticians are coming to close quarters at last,” thought Monsieur Hochon as he watched the colonel marching off with his uncle; “I am curious to see the end of the game, and what becomes of the stake of ninety thousand francs a year.”

“My dear uncle,” said Philippe, whose phraseology had a flavor of his affinities in Paris, “you love this girl, and you are devilishly right.  She is damnably handsome!  Instead of billing and cooing she makes you trot like a valet; well, that’s all simple enough; but she wants to see you six feet underground, so that she may marry Max, whom she adores.”

“I know that, Philippe, but I love her all the same.”

“Well, I have sworn by the soul of my mother, who is your own sister,” continued Philippe, “to make your Rabouilleuse as supple as my glove, and the same as she was before that scoundrel, who is unworthy to have served in the Imperial Guard, ever came to quarter himself in your house.”

“Ah! if you could do that!—­” said the old man.

“It is very easy,” answered Philippe, cutting his uncle short.  “I’ll kill Max as I would a dog; but—­on one condition,” added the old campaigner.