"How much is it?"
"Twenty francs," said the old woman.
Marius had thirty francs in reserve in a drawer.
"Here are twenty-five francs," he said to the woman; "pay the rent of the poor people, give them five francs, and do not tell them where the money comes from."
[CHAPTER VI.]
THE SUBSTITUTE.
Accident decreed that the regiment to which Théodule belonged should be quartered in Paris. This was an opportunity for Aunt Gillenormand to have a second idea; her first one had been to set Théodule watching Marius, and she now plotted to make him succeed him. In the event of the grandfather feeling a vague want for a youthful face in the house—for such rays of dawn are sometimes sweet to ruins—it was expedient to find another Marius. "Well," she thought, "it is only a simple erratum, such as I notice in books, for Marius read Théodule. A grand-nephew is much the same as a grandson, after all, and in default of a barrister you can take a lancer."
One morning when M. Gillenormand was going to read something like the Quotidienne, his daughter came in and said in her softest voice, for the interests of her favorite were at stake,—
"Papa, Théodule is coming this morning to pay his respects to you."