Thus the cashier discovered, one by one, all his son’s tricks. He heard that he was almost unknown at the law-school, that he spent his days in the cafes, and that, in the evening, when he believed him in bed and asleep, he was in fact running out to theatres and to balls. “Ah! that’s the way, is it?” he thought. “Ah, my wife and children are in league against me,--me, the master. Very well, we’ll see.” XI From that morning war was declared. From that day commenced in the Rue St. Gilles one of those domestic dramas which are still awaiting their Moliere,--a drama of distressing vulgarity and sickening realism, but poignant, nevertheless; for it brought into action tears, blood, and a savage energy. M. Favoral thought himself sure to win; for did he not have the key of the cash, and is not the key of the cash the most formidable weapon in an age where every thing begins and ends with money? Nevertheless, he was filled with irritating anxieties. He who had just discovered so many things which he did not even suspect a few days before, he could not discover the source whence his son drew the money which flowed like water from his prodigal hands. He had made sure that Maxence had no debts; and yet it could not be with M. Chapelain’s monthly twenty francs that he fed his frolics. Mme. Favoral and Gilberte, subjected separately to a skillful interrogatory, had managed to keep inviolate the secret of their mercenary labor. The servant, shrewdly questioned, had said nothing that could in any way cause the truth to be suspected. Here was, then, a mystery; and M. Favoral’s constant anxiety could be read upon his knitted brows during his brief visits to the house; that is, during dinner. From the manner in which he tasted his soup, it was easy to see that he was asking himself whether that was real soup, and whether he was not being imposed upon. From the expression of his eyes, it was easy to guess this question constantly present to his mind. “They are robbing me evidently; but how do they do it?” And he became distrustful, fussy, and suspicious, to an extent that he had never been before. It was with the most insulting precautions that he examined every Sunday his wife’s accounts. He took a look at the grocer’s, and settled it himself every month: he had the butcher’s bills sent to him in duplicate. He would inquire the price of an apple as he peeled it over his plate, and never failed to stop at the fruiterer’s and ascertain that he had not been deceived. But it was all in vain. And yet he knew that Maxence always had in his pocket two or three five-franc pieces. “Where do you steal them?” he asked him one day. “I save them out of my salary,” boldly answered the young man.