Page 1193 - les-miserables

shun all glances, had, naturally, caused some attention on
the part of the five or six students who strolled along the Pe-
piniere from time to time; the studious after their lectures,
the others after their game of billiards. Courfeyrac, who
was among the last, had observed them several times, but,
finding the girl homely, he had speedily and carefully kept
out of the way. He had fled, discharging at them a sobriquet,
like a Parthian dart. Impressed solely with the child’s gown
and the old man’s hair, he had dubbed the daughter Made-
moiselle Lanoire, and the father, Monsieur Leblanc, so that
as no one knew them under any other title, this nickname
became a law in the default of any other name. The students
said: ‘Ah! Monsieur Leblanc is on his bench.’ And Marius,
like the rest, had found it convenient to call this unknown
gentleman Monsieur Leblanc.
We shall follow their example, and we shall say M. Leb-
lanc, in order to facilitate this tale.
So Marius saw them nearly every day, at the same hour,
during the first year. He found the man to his taste, but the
girl insipid.

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