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CHAPTER VIII
THE ARTILLERY-MEN
COMPEL PEOPLE TO
TAKE THEM SERIOUSLY
They flocked round Gavroche. But he had no time to tell
anything. Marius drew him aside with a shudder.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Hullo!’ said the child, ‘what are you doing here your-
self?’
And he stared at Marius intently with his epic effrontery.
His eyes grew larger with the proud light within them.
It was with an accent of severity that Marius continued:
‘Who told you to come back? Did you deliver my letter
at the address?’
Gavroche was not without some compunctions in the
matter of that letter. In his haste to return to the barricade,
he had got rid of it rather than delivered it. He was forced
to acknowledge to himself that he had confided it rather
lightly to that stranger whose face he had not been able to
make out. It is true that the man was bareheaded, but that