After rejecting certain more or less ingenious schemes of vengeance, Jules resolved to catch his enemy asleep and shave his eyebrows--a punishment which would be easy to inflict, as Dubuc, the youth who had kicked him, was a mighty heavy sleeper. This plan had the further advantage of touching him on a most sensitive point, for he was a handsome fellow and a good deal of a dandy. Jules had just decided on this revenge, when he heard Dubuc say to one of his friends, who had rallied him on looking gloomy: "Indeed, I have good reason to be, for I expect my father to-morrow. I have got into debt with the shop-keepers, hoping that my mother would come to Quebec ahead of him, and would relieve me without his knowing anything about it. Father is close-fisted and violent. He will probably strike me in the first heat of his anger; and I don't know where to hide my head. I have a mind to run away until the storm is over." "Oh," said Jules, "why don't you let me help you out of the scrape?" "The devil you say!" exclaimed Dubuc, shaking his head. "Why," said Jules, "do you think that on account of a kick, more or less, I would leave a fellow-student in a scrape and exposed to the violence of his amiable papa? To be sure, you almost broke my back, but that is another affair, which we will settle later. How much cash do you want?" "My dear fellow," answered Dubuc, "that would be abusing your kindness. I need a large sum, and I know you are not in funds just now; for you emptied your purse to help that poor woman whose husband was killed the other day." "A pretty story," said Jules. "As if one could not always find money to save a friend from the wrath of a father who is going to break his neck! How much do you want?" "Fifty francs!" "You shall have them this evening," said the boy. Jules, an only son, belonging to a rich family, indulged by everybody, had his pockets always full of money. Father and mother, uncles and aunts, godfathers and godmothers, they all kept loudly proclaiming that boys should not have too much money to spend. At the same time they outdid each other in surreptitiously supplying his purse! Dubuc, however, had spoken truly; the boy's purse was empty for the moment. Fifty francs was, moreover, quite a sum in those days. The King of France was paying his red allies only fifty francs for an English scalp. His Britannic Majesty, richer or more generous, was paying a hundred for the scalp of a Frenchman! Jules did not care to apply to his uncles and his aunts, the only relations he had in the city. His first thought was to borrow fifty francs by pawning his gold watch, which was worth at least twenty-five louis. Revolving the matter, however, he bethought himself of a certain old woman, a servant of the house, whom his father had dowered at her marriage, and to whom he had afterward advanced enough money to set her up in business. The business had prospered in her hands. She was a widow, rich and childless.