"Is there a cab [dog] in the garden?" another asked. "I don't know. In any case I have brought a bullet which we will make it eat." "Have you got some mastic to break a pane?" "Yes." "The railings are old," remarked the fifth man, who seemed to have the voice of a ventriloquist. "All the better," said the second speaker; "it will make no noise when sawn, and won't be so hard to cut through." The sixth, who had not yet opened his mouth, began examining the railings as Éponine had done an hour ago, and thus reached the bar which Marius had unfastened. Just as he was about to seize this bar, a hand suddenly emerging from the darkness clutched his arm; he felt himself roughly thrust back, and a hoarse voice whispered to him, "There's a cab." At the same time he saw a pale girl standing in front of him. The man had that emotion which is always produced by things unexpected; his hair stood hideously on end. Nothing is more formidable to look at than startled wild beasts. Their affrighted look is hideous. He fell back and stammered,-- "Who is this she-devil?" "Your daughter." It was, in truth, Éponine speaking to Thénardier. Upon her apparition, the other five men, that is to say, Claquesous, Gueulemer, Babet, Montparnasse, and Brujon, approached noiselessly, without hurry or saying a word, but with the sinister slowness peculiar to these men of the night. Some hideous tools could be distinguished in their hands, and Gueulemer held a pair of those short pincers which burglars call _fauchons_ (small scythes). "Well, what are you doing here? What do you want? Are you mad?" Thénardier exclaimed, as far as is possible to exclaim in a whisper. "Have you come to prevent us from working?" Éponine burst into a laugh and leaped on his neck. "I am here, my little papa, because I am here; are not people allowed to sit down on the stones at present? It is you who oughtn't to be here; and what have you come to do, since it is a biscuit? I told Magnon so, and there is nothing to be done here. But embrace me, my good little papa, it is such a time since I saw you. You are out, then?" Thénardier tried to free himself from Éponine's arms, and growled,-- "There, there, you have embraced me. Yes, I am out, and not in. Now be off." But Éponine did not loose her hold, and redoubled her caresses. "My dear papa, how ever did you manage? You must have been very clever to get out of that scrape, so tell me all about it. And where is mamma? Give me some news of her." Thénardier answered,-- "She's all right. I don't know; leave me and be off, I tell you." "I do not exactly want to go off," Éponine said with the pout of a spoiled child; "you send me away, though I haven't seen you now for four months, and I have scarce had time to embrace you." And she caught her father again round the neck. "Oh, come, this is a bore," said Babet. "Make haste," said Gueulemer, "the police may pass." The ventriloquial voice hummed,--