Page 1251 - les-miserables

they all come from the same person?
Moreover, and this rendered the conjecture all the more
probable, the coarse and yellow paper was the same in
all four, the odor of tobacco was the same, and, although
an attempt had been made to vary the style, the same or-
thographical faults were reproduced with the greatest
tranquillity, and the man of letters Genflot was no more ex-
empt from them than the Spanish captain.
It was waste of trouble to try to solve this petty mystery.
Had it not been a chance find, it would have borne the air of
a mystification. Marius was too melancholy to take even a
chance pleasantry well, and to lend himself to a game which
the pavement of the street seemed desirous of playing with
him. It seemed to him that he was playing the part of the
blind man in blind man’s buff between the four letters, and
that they were making sport of him.
Nothing, however, indicated that these letters belonged
to the two young girls whom Marius had met on the bou-
levard. After all, they were evidently papers of no value.
Marius replaced them in their envelope, flung the whole
into a corner and went to bed. About seven o’clock in the
morning, he had just risen and breakfasted, and was try-
ing to settle down to work, when there came a soft knock
at his door.
As he owned nothing, he never locked his door, unless
occasionally, though very rarely, when he was engaged in
some pressing work. Even when absent he left his key in the
lock. ‘You will be robbed,’ said Ma’am Bougon. ‘Of what?’
said Marius. The truth is, however, that he had, one day,

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