Let''s go shares.
You have seen my key, show me your money."
Thenardier was haggard, fierce, suspicious, rather menacing, yet amicable.
There was one singular circumstance; Thenardier''s manners were not simple; he had not the air of being wholly at his ease; while affecting an air of mystery, he spoke low; from time to time he laid his finger on his mouth, and muttered, "hush!"
It was difficult to divine why.
There was no one there except themselves. Jean Valjean thought that other ruffians might possibly be concealed in some nook, not very far off, and that Thenardier did not care to share with them.
Thenardier resumed:
"Let''s settle up.
How much did the stiff have in his bags?"
Jean Valjean searched his pockets.
It was his habit, as the reader will remember, to always have some money about him.
The mournful life of expedients to which he had been condemned imposed this as a law upon him.
On this occasion, however, he had been caught unprepared.
When donning his uniform of a National Guardsman on the preceding evening, he had forgotten, dolefully absorbed as he was, to take his pocket-book. He had only some small change in his fob.
He turned out his pocket, all soaked with ooze, and spread out on the banquette of the vault one lou