"He did not go out until six o'clock in the evening, and the government bank certainly is not open at that hour."
The old woman went to get the bill changed, and mentioned her surmises.
That thousand-franc note, commented on and multiplied, produced a vast amount of terrified discussion among the gossips of the Rue des Vignes Saint-Marcel.
A few days later, it chanced that Jean Valjean was sawing some wood, in his shirt-sleeves, in the corridor.
The old woman was in the chamber, putting things in order.
She was alone.
Cosette was occupied in admiring the wood as it was sawed.
The old woman caught sight of the coat hanging on a nail, and examined it.
The lining had been sewed up again.
The good woman felt of it carefully, and thought she observed in the skirts and revers thicknesses of paper. More thousand-franc bank-bills, no doubt!
She also noticed that there were all sorts of things in the pockets. Not only the needles, thread, and scissors which she had seen, but a big pocket-book, a very large knife, and--a suspicious circumstance-- several wigs of various colors.
Each pocket of this coat had the air of being in a manner provided against unexpected accidents.
Thus the inhabitants of the house reached the last days of winter.
BOOK FOURTH.--THE GORBEAU HOVEL
CHAPTER V
A FIVE-FRANC PIECE FALLS ON THE GROUND AND PRODUCES A TUMULT
Near Saint-Medard's church there was a poor man who was in the habit of crouching on the brink of a public well which had been condemned, and on whom Jean Valjean was fond of bestowing charity.
He never passed this man without giving him a few sous.