"Buteau! Buteau!" she called in so stifled a voice that her husband at once ran to her in his shirt, imagining that his father was dying.
For a moment he, too, remained choking with amazement. Then a wild delight took possession of them both, and taking hold of each other's hands they jumped about opposite each other like a couple of goats, forgetting all about the sick man, who was now lying with his eyes shut and his head seemingly riveted to the pillow. He was still rambling on, spasmodically, in his delirium. Just now he fancied that he was ploughing.
"Come, now, get along, you brute! Confound it all, there's a great piece of flint, and it won't yield! The handles are getting broken, and I shall have to buy new ones. Get along, you brute, get along!"
"Hush!" murmured Lise, turning round with a startled air.
"Stuff!" retorted Buteau. "You don't suppose he understands, do you? Can't you hear him drivelling?"
They now both seated themselves near the bed, for their sudden shock of delight left their legs quite weak and tremulous.
"No one can ever say that we hunted about for it," Lise observed, "for, as God is my witness, I wasn't thinking about his money at all! It tumbled into my hand. Let us see what there is."
Buteau had already unfolded the papers, and was reckoning them up aloud.
"Two hundred and thirty, and seventy; that's just three hundred altogether. That's exactly what I reckoned it at before, when I saw him draw fifteen five-franc pieces for the quarter's interest at the tax-collector's. Doesn't it seem funny, now, that these shabby bits of paper are just as good as real money?"
Lise again hushed him, alarmed by a sudden snigger from the old man, who now seemed to be imagining that he was engaged in reaping the famous harvest in Charles X.'s time, which was so plentiful that there was not room enough in which to garner it all.