Trotter. I know. The candles which are lit on the shrine when their owners are present, and carefully extinguished and saved when they have gone, by order of the thrifty saints perhaps. So men in their pious thrift exact a heavy percentage of profit out of holy things.
Gnawer. Come! come! You may grow indignant at your leisure. I hear Babolin approaching. Let us leave him a clear field; he might tread on us.
SCENE V. Enter BABOLIN.
So, so! In spite of my express wishes he meets my daughter. Comes like a thief to the window under cover of night. I shall show them what I am. [Calls Toinon; Toinon enters.] Where are my rights as a father? where are they? It is Mr. Paul who mocks me! [As if struck with an idea, he pauses.] What if I said nothing about my mischances? If I acted the clement loving father. Paul loves my daughter. My daughter loves Paul. If, like the really kind-hearted man that I am, I yield to their wishes? That would do me honour, and make me appear before the world a model of virtue and forbearance. [Approaching his daughter.] Say, my little Toinon, does it grieve you very much not to wed your Paul? [Toinon, whose heart is too full for speech, bursts into tears.] Toinon, if instead of going to the lawyer we go to the notary?
Toinon. [Smiling like the sun through a rain-cloud.] To the notary, my father?
Babolin. Yes, my darling, that he may hasten to draw up your marriage contract.
Toinon. With whom, my dear papa?
Babolin. With Paul.
Toinon. [Throwing her arms round his neck.] O my dear father! how good! how kind of you! I dared not speak openly to you for fear of giving you pain; yet without Paul I should have died.
Babolin. Confound it! No. You must not dream of dying. Come to the notary.