about midnight
`` I 'll find a situation and put you to no expense ; all I need for the present is board and lodging . '' Agathe kissed her son , and Madame Descoings slipped a hundred francs into his hand to pay for his losses of the night before . In ten days the furniture was sold , the _ appartement _ given up , and the change in Agathe 's domestic arrangements accomplished with a celerity seldom seen outside of Paris . During those ten days , Philippe regularly decamped after breakfast , came back for dinner , was off again for the evening , and only got home about midnight to go to bed . He contracted certain habits half mechanically , and they soon became rooted in him ; he got his boots blacked on the Pont Neuf for the two sous it would have cost him to go by the Pont des Arts to the Palais-Royal , where he consumed regularly two glasses of brandy while reading the newspapers , -- an occupation which employed him till midday ; after that he sauntered along the rue Vivienne to the cafe Minerve , where the Liberals congregated , and where he played at billiards with a number of old comrades . While winning and losing , Philippe swallowed four or five more glasses of divers liquors , and smoked ten or a dozen cigars in going and coming , and idling along the streets . In the evening , after consuming a few pipes at the Hollandais smoking-rooms , he would go to some gambling-place towards ten o'clock at night .