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Wealthy travellers are not so polite. This gesture, and an
inspection of the stranger’s costume and baggage, which
the Thenardier passed in review with one glance, caused the
amiable grimace to vanish, and the gruff mien to reappear.
She resumed dryly:—
‘Enter, my good man.’
The ‘good man’ entered. The Thenardier cast a second
glance at him, paid particular attention to his frock-coat,
which was absolutely threadbare, and to his hat, which was
a little battered, and, tossing her head, wrinkling her nose,
and screwing up her eyes, she consulted her husband, who
was still drinking with the carters. The husband replied
by that imperceptible movement of the forefinger, which,
backed up by an inflation of the lips, signifies in such cases:
A regular beggar. Thereupon, the Thenardier exclaimed:—
‘Ah! see here, my good man; I am very sorry, but I have
no room left.’
‘Put me where you like,’ said the man; ‘in the attic, in the
stable. I will pay as though I occupied a room.’
‘Forty sous.’
‘Forty sous; agreed.’
‘Very well, then!’
‘Forty sous!’ said a carter, in a low tone, to the Thenardier
woman; ‘why, the charge is only twenty sous!’
‘It is forty in his case,’ retorted the Thenardier, in the
same tone. ‘I don’t lodge poor folks for less.’
‘That’s true,’ added her husband, gently; ‘it ruins a house
to have such people in it.’
In the meantime, the man, laying his bundle and his