1608 Les Miserables
‘What are you up to to-night?’
Again Montparnasse took a grave tone, and said, mouth-
ing every syllable: ‘Things.’
And abruptly changing the conversation:—
‘By the way!’
‘What?’
‘Something happened t’other day. Fancy. I meet a bour-
geois. He makes me a present of a sermon and his purse.
I put it in my pocket. A minute later, I feel in my pocket.
There’s nothing there.’
‘Except the sermon,’ said Gavroche.
‘But you,’ went on Montparnasse, ‘where are you bound
for now?’
Gavroche pointed to his two proteges, and said:—
‘I’m going to put these infants to bed.’
‘Whereabouts is the bed?’
‘At my house.’
‘Where’s your house?’
‘At my house.’
‘So you have a lodging?’
‘Yes, I have.’
‘And where is your lodging?’
‘In the elephant,’ said Gavroche.
Montparnasse, though not naturally inclined to aston-
ishment, could not restrain an exclamation.
‘In the elephant!’
‘Well, yes, in the elephant!’ retorted Gavroche. ‘Kekcaa?’
This is another word of the language which no one writes,
and which every one speaks.