"Fasten him to the foot of the bed," he said; and noticing the old man whom M. Leblanc had knocked down still motionless on the floor, he asked,—
"Is Boulatruelle dead?"
"No," Bigrenaille answered, "he's drunk."
"Sweep him into a corner," Thénardier said.
Two of the "chimney-menders" thrust the drunkard with their feet to the side of the old iron.
"Babet, why did you bring so many?" Thénardier said in a whisper to the man with the cudgel; "it was unnecessary."
"They all wanted to be in it," the man answered, "for the season is bad, and there's nothing doing."
The bed upon which M. Leblanc had been thrown was a sort of hospital bed, on four clumsy wooden legs. M. Leblanc made no resistance. The bandits tied him firmly in an upright posture to the end of the bed, farthest from the window and nearest the chimney-piece. When the last knot was tied, Thénardier took a chair and sat down almost facing the prisoner. He was no longer the same man; in a few minutes his countenance had passed from frenzied violence to tranquil and cunning gentleness. Marius had a difficulty in recognizing in this polite smile of an official the almost bestial mouth which had been foaming a moment previously; he regarded this fantastic and alarming metamorphosis with stupor, and he felt as a man would feel who saw a tiger changed into an attorney.
"Sir," said Thénardier, and made a sign to the bandits who still held M. Leblanc to fall back;—"leave me to talk with the gentleman," he said. All withdrew to the door, and he resumed,—
"You did wrong to try and jump out of the window, for you might have broken a leg. Now, with your permission, we will talk quietly; and, in the first place, I will communicate to you a thing I have noticed,—that you have not yet uttered the slightest cry."