Page 1307 - les-miserables

‘What beastly weather!’ said he.
Then lapping his overcoat across his breast:—
‘This rind is too large for me. Never mind,’ he added, ‘he
did a devilish good thing in leaving it for me, the old scoun-
drel! If it hadn’t been for that, I couldn’t have gone out, and
everything would have gone wrong! What small points
things hang on, anyway!’
And pulling his cap down over his eyes, he quitted the
room.
He had barely had time to take half a dozen steps from
the door, when the door opened again, and his savage but
intelligent face made its appearance once more in the open-
ing.
‘I came near forgetting,’ said he. ‘You are to have a bra-
zier of charcoal ready.’
And he flung into his wife’s apron the five-franc piece
which the ‘philanthropist’ had left with him.
‘A brazier of charcoal?’ asked his wife.
‘Yes.’
‘How many bushels?’
‘Two good ones.’
‘That will come to thirty sous. With the rest I will buy
something for dinner.’
‘The devil, no.’
‘Why?’
‘Don’t go and spend the hundred-sou piece.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I shall have to buy something, too.’
‘What?’

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