y, do
you know what is in this envelope?"

"Why, of course not," she said.

"Well, look."

Mine. Giry looked into the envelope with a lackluster eye, which soon
recovered its brilliancy.

"Thousand-franc notes!" she cried.

"Yes, Mme. Giry, thousand-franc notes! And you knew it!"

"I, sir? I? ... I swear ..."

"Don't swear, Mme. Giry! ... And now I will tell you the second reason
why I sent for you. Mme. Giry, I am going to have you arrested."

The two black feathers on the dingy bonnet, which usually affected the
attitude of two notes of interrogation, changed into two notes of
exclamation; as for the bonnet itself, it swayed in menace on the old
lady's tempestuous chignon. Surprise, indignation, protest and dismay
were furthermore displayed by little Meg's mother in a sort of
extravagant movement of offended virtue, half bound, half slide, that
brought her right under the nose of M. Richard, who could not help
pushing back his chair.

"HAVE ME ARRESTED!"

The mouth that spoke those words seemed to spit the three teeth that
were left to it into Richard's face.

M. Richard behaved like a hero. He retreated no farther. His
threatening forefinger seemed already to be pointing out the keeper of
Box Five to the absent magistrates.

"I am going to have you arrested, Mme. Giry, as a thief!"

"Say that again!"

And Mme. Giry caught Mr. Manager Richard a mighty box on the ear,
before Mr. Manager Moncharmin had time to intervene. But it was not
the withered hand of the angry old beldame that fell on the managerial
ear, but the envelope itself, the cause of all the trouble, the magic
envelope that opened with the blow, scattering the bank-notes, which
escaped in a fantastic whirl of giant butterflies.

The two managers gave a shout, and the same thought made them both go
on their knees, feverishly, picking up and hurriedly examining the
precious scraps of paper.

"Are they still genuine, Moncharmin?"

"Are they still genuine, Richard?"

"Yes, they are still genuine!"

Above their heads, Mme. Giry's three teeth were clashing in a noisy
contest, full of hideous interjections. But all that could be clearly
distinguished was this LEIT-MOTIF:

"I, a thief! ... I, a thief, I?"

She choked with rage. She shouted:

"I never heard of such a thing!"

And, suddenly, she darted up to Richard again.

"In any case," she yelped, "you, M. Richard, ought to know better than
I where the twenty thousand f