Page 2235 - les-miserables

CHAPTER I

IN WHICH THE TREE

WITH THE ZINC PLASTER

APPEARS AGAIN

Some time after the events which we have just recorded,
Sieur Boulatruelle experienced a lively emotion.
Sieur Boulatruelle was that road-mender of Montfermeil
whom the reader has already seen in the gloomy parts of
this book.
Boulatruelle, as the reader may, perchance, recall, was
a man who was occupied with divers and troublesome
matters. He broke stones and damaged travellers on the
highway.
Road-mender and thief as he was, he cherished one
dream; he believed in the treasures buried in the forest
of Montfermeil. He hoped some day to find the money in
the earth at the foot of a tree; in the meanwhile, he lived to
search the pockets of passers-by.
Nevertheless, for an instant, he was prudent. He had just
escaped neatly. He had been, as the reader is aware, picked

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