Pagina 254 di 896

Without deigning to look at the assemblage a second time,

Monsieur the Marquis leaned back in his seat, and was just being

driven away with the air of a gentleman who had accidentally

broke some common thing, and had paid for it, and could afford to

pay for it; when his ease was suddenly disturbed by a coin flying

into his carriage, and ringing on its floor.

"Hold!" said Monsieur the Marquis. "Hold the horses! Who threw

that?"

He looked to the spot where Defarge the vendor of wine had stood,

a moment before; but the wretched father was grovelling on his

face on the pavement in that spot, and the figure that stood

beside him was the figure of a dark stout woman, knitting.

"You dogs!" said the Marquis, but smoothly, and with an unchanged

front, except as to the spots on his nose: "I would ride over any

of you very willingly, and exterminate you from the earth. If I

knew which rascal threw at the carriage, and if that brigand were

sufficiently near it, he should be crushed under the wheels."