busy."

"With what?"

"Don't you see his air?"

"What air?"

"He has the air of a man who is following some one."

"That's true," said Bossuet.

"Just see the eyes he is making!" said Courfeyrac.

"But who the deuce is he following?"

"Some fine, flowery bonneted wench! He's in love."

"But," observed Bossuet, "I don't see any wench nor any flowery bonnet
in the street. There's not a woman round."

Courfeyrac took a survey, and exclaimed:--

"He's following a man!"

A man, in fact, wearing a gray cap, and whose gray beard could be
distinguished, although they only saw his back, was walking along about
twenty paces in advance of Marius.

This man was dressed in a great-coat which was perfectly new and too
large for him, and in a frightful pair of trousers all hanging in rags
and black with mud.

Bossuet burst out laughing.

"Who is that man?"

"He?" retorted Courfeyrac, "he's a poet. Poets are very fond of wearing
the trousers of dealers in rabbit skins and the overcoats of peers of
France."

"Let's see where Marius will go," said Bossuet; "let's see where the man
is going, let's follow them, hey?"

"Bossuet!" exclaimed Courfeyrac, "eagle of Meaux! You are a prodigious
brute. Follow a man who is following another man, indeed!"

They retraced their steps.

Marius had, in fact, seen Jondrette passing along the Rue Mouffetard,
and was spying on his proceedings.

Jondrette walked straight ahead, without a suspicion that he was already
held by a glance.

He quitted the Rue Mouffetard, and Marius saw him enter one of the most
terrible hovels in the Rue Gracieuse; he remained there about a quarter
of an hour, then returned to the Rue Mouffetard. He halted at
an ironmonger's shop, which then stood at the corner of the Rue
Pierre-Lombard, and a few minutes later Marius saw him emerge from the
shop, holding in his hand a huge cold chisel with a white wood handle,
which he concealed beneath his great-coat. At the top of the Rue
Petit-Gentilly he turned to the left and proceeded rapidly to the Rue du
Petit-Banquier. The day was declining; the snow, which had ceased for a
moment, had just begun again. Marius posted himself on the watch at the
very corner of the Rue du Petit-Banquier, which was deserted, as usual,
and did not follow Jondrette into it. It was lucky that he did so,
for, on arriving in the vicinity of the wall where Marius had heard the
long-haired man and the bearded man conversing, Jondre