"Oh, Madame," he said with an almost timid smile, "let her play!"
Such a wish would have been a command from any traveller who had ordered a good supper and drunk a couple of bottles of wine, and who did not look like a beggar. But the landlady did not tolerate a man who had such a hat, having a desire, and one who wore such a coat, daring to have a will of his own! Hence she answered sharply,—
"She must work, since she eats; I do not keep her to do nothing."
"What is she doing, pray?" the stranger continued, in that gentle voice which formed such a strange contrast with his beggar clothes and porter shoulders.
The landlady deigned to reply,—
"She is knitting stockings, if you please, for my little girls, who have none, so to speak, and are forced to go about barefooted."
The man looked at Cosette's poor red feet, and said,—
"When will she have finished that pair of stockings?"
"She has three or four good days' work, the idle slut!"
"And how much may such a pair be worth when finished?"