If any one entered the tavern, the
people with whom he gossiped warned him, and he slowly and reluctantly
returned.

Rigou stopped his horse, and getting out of the chaise, fastened the
bridle to one of the posts near the gate of the Tivoli. Then he made a
pretext to listen to what was going on without being noticed, and placed
himself between two windows through one of which he could, by advancing
his head, see the persons in the room, watch their gestures, and catch
the louder tones which came through the glass of the windows and which
the quiet of the street enabled him to hear.

"If I were to tell old Rigou that your brother Nicolas is after La
Pechina," cried an angry voice, "and that he waylays her, he'd rip the
entrails out of every one of you,--pack of scoundrels that you are at
the Grand-I-Vert!"

"If you play me such a trick as that, Aglae," said the shrill voice of
Marie Tonsard, "you sha'n't tell anything more except to the worms in
your coffin. Don't meddle with my brother's business or with mine and
Bonnebault's either."

Marie, instigated by her grandmother, had, as we see, followed
Bonnebault; she had watched him through the very window where Rigou
was now standing, and had seen him displaying his graces and paying
compliments so agreeable to Mademoiselle Socquard that she was forced to
smile upon him. That smile had brought about the scene in the midst of
which the revelation that interested Rigou came out.

"Well, well, Pere Rigou, what are you doing here?" said Socquard,
slapping the usurer on the shoulder; he was coming from a barn at the
end of the garden, where he kept various contrivances for the public
games, such as weighing-machines, merry-go-rounds, see-saws, all in
readiness for the Tivoli when opened. Socquard stepped noiselessly, for
he was wearing a pair of those yellow leather-slippers which cost so
little by the gross that they have an enormous sale in the provinces.

"If you have any fresh lemons, I'd like a glass of lemonade," said
Rigou; "it is a warm evening."

"Who is making that racket?" said Socquard, looking through the window
and seeing his daughter and Marie Tonsard.

"They are quarrelling for Bonnebault," said Rigou, sardonically.

The anger of the father was at once controlled by the interest of the
tavern-keeper. The tavern-keeper judged it prudent to listen outside,
as Rigou was doing; the father was inclined to enter and declare
that Bonnebault, possessed of ad