They halted in amazement. The ventriloquist, however, finished his grin. She went on:—
“Friends! Listen well. This is not what you want. Now I’m talking. In the first place, if you enter this garden, if you lay a hand on this gate, I’ll scream, I’ll beat on the door, I’ll rouse everybody, I’ll have the whole six of you seized, I’ll call the police.”
“She’d do it, too,” said Thénardier in a low tone to Brujon and the ventriloquist.
She shook her head and added:—
“Beginning with my father!”
Thénardier stepped nearer.
“Not so close, my good man!” said she.
He retreated, growling between his teeth:—
“Why, what’s the matter with her?”
And he added:—
“Bitch!”
She began to laugh in a terrible way:—
“As you like, but you shall not enter here. I’m not the daughter of a dog, since I’m the daughter of a wolf. There are six of you, what matters that to me? You are men. Well, I’m a woman. You don’t frighten me. I tell you that you shan’t enter this house, because it doesn’t suit me. If you approach, I’ll bark. I told you, I’m the dog, and I don’t care a straw for you. Go your way, you bore me! Go where you please, but don’t come here, I forbid it! You can use your knives. I’ll use kicks; it’s all the same to me, come on!”