"And with his goody-goody air!"

And, apostrophizing M. Leblanc:--

"Parbleu! You made game of me in the past! You are the cause of all my
misfortunes! For fifteen hundred francs you got a girl whom I had, and
who certainly belonged to rich people, and who had already brought in a
great deal of money, and from whom I might have extracted enough to live
on all my life! A girl who would have made up to me for everything that
I lost in that vile cook-shop, where there was nothing but one continual
row, and where, like a fool, I ate up my last farthing! Oh! I wish all
the wine folks drank in my house had been poison to those who drank it!
Well, never mind! Say, now! You must have thought me ridiculous when you
went off with the Lark! You had your cudgel in the forest. You were the
stronger. Revenge. I'm the one to hold the trumps to-day! You're in a
sorry case, my good fellow! Oh, but I can laugh! Really, I laugh! Didn't
he fall into the trap! I told him that I was an actor, that my name was
Fabantou, that I had played comedy with Mamselle Mars, with Mamselle
Muche, that my landlord insisted on being paid tomorrow, the 4th of
February, and he didn't even notice that the 8th of January, and not the
4th of February is the time when the quarter runs out! Absurd idiot!
And the four miserable Philippes which he has brought me! Scoundrel!
He hadn't the heart even to go as high as a hundred francs! And how
he swallowed my platitudes! That did amuse me. I said to myself:
'Blockhead! Come, I've got you! I lick your paws this morning, but I'll
gnaw your heart this evening!'"

Thenardier paused. He was out of breath. His little, narrow chest panted
like a forge bellows. His eyes were full of the ignoble happiness of a
feeble, cruel, and cowardly creature, which finds that it can, at last,
harass what it has feared, and insult what it has flattered, the joy of
a dwarf who should be able to set his heel on the head of Goliath, the
joy of a jackal which is beginning to rend a sick bull, so nearly dead
that he can no longer defend himself, but sufficiently alive to suffer
still.

M. Leblanc did not interrupt him, but said to him when he paused:--

"I do not know what you mean to say. You are mistaken in me. I am a very
poor man, and anything but a millionnaire. I do not know you. You are
mistaking me for some other person."

"Ah!" roared Thenardier hoarsely, "a pretty lie! You stick to that
pleasantry, do you! You're floundering, m