So saying, the abbe looked about to find his hat, and proceeded to slip quietly away.

Suddenly a fearful uproar was heard.  Rushing into the dining-room, whence came a sound of furniture overturned and glasses breaking, Brigitte found Colleville occupied in adjusting his cravat and looking himself over to be sure that his coat, cruelly pulled awry, bore no signs of being actually torn.

“What is the matter?” cried Brigitte.

“It is that old idiot,” replied Colleville, “who is in a fury.  I came to take my coffee with him, just to keep him company, and he took a joke amiss, and collared me, and knocked over two chairs and a tray of glasses because Josephine didn’t get out of his way in time.”

“It is all because you’ve been teasing him,” said Brigitte, crossly; “why couldn’t you stay in the salon instead of coming here to play your jokes, as you call them?  You think you are still in the orchestra of the Opera-Comique.”

This sharp rebuke delivered, Brigitte, like the resolute woman that she was, saw that she absolutely must get rid of the ferocious old man who threatened her household with flames and blood.  Accordingly, she approached pere Picot, who was tranquilly engaged in burning brandy in his saucer.

“Monsieur,” she said, at the top of her lungs, as if she were speaking to a deaf person (evidently thinking that a blind one ought to be treated in the same manner), “I have come to tell you something that may annoy you.  Monsieur and Madame Phellion have just arrived, and they inform me that their son, Monsieur Felix, is not coming.  He has a cold and a sore-throat.”

“Then he got it this afternoon reading that lecture,” cried the professor, joyfully.  “That’s justice!—­Madame, where do you get your brandy?”

“Why, at my grocer’s,” replied Brigitte, taken aback by the question.

“Well, madame, I ought to tell you that in a house where one can drink such excellent champagne, which reminds me of that we used to quaff at the table of Monsieur de Fontanes, grand-master of the University, it is shameful to keep such brandy.  I tell you, with the frankness I put into everything, that it is good only to wash your horses’ feet, and if I had not the resource of burning it—­”

“He is the devil in person,” thought Brigitte; “not a word of excuse about all that glass, but he must needs fall foul of my brandy too!  —­Monsieur,” she resumed, in the same raised diapason, “as Monsieur Felix is not coming, don’t you think your family will be uneasy at your absence?”

“Family?  I haven’t any, madame, owing to the fact that they want to make me out a lunatic.  But I have a housekeeper, Madame Lambert, and I dare say she will be surprised not to see me home by this time.  I think I had better go now; if I stay later, the scene might be more violent.  But I must own that in this strange quarter I am not sure if I can find my way.”

“Then take a carriage.”