It was a poor day to be out. The rain had stopped long ago, but water still trickled down from the sky, almost as an after thought. The wind was harsh and jagged, cutting innocent street peddlers to the bone as they fought against becoming airborne.
A foolish newspaper peddler dug into his time worn sack, no doubt looking for something to eat. All at once, the wind gave an extra strong shove and the unsold dailies went soaring. They flew curiously, like a lop-sided bat; the inner pages at once falling out and taking on independent flight.
It was in the wake of this unusual flock that Thenardier emerged.
He had been doing his usual skulking about Paris, analyzing the shops and reciting to himself their wares. It seemed that Thenardier was merely preparing himself for another dusk of thievery.
It was not so. He was merely observing.
Thenardier had become bored with petty theft as of late. There was only so much money to be made in it for all the effort it took. Thenardier was anxious to make himself a rich man, and a large scale scam was the only way to do it. But how? And where?
Thenardier stopped walking, just then, and glanced upwards. The ramshackle wooden building looked stately to Thenardier, albeit slightly lopsided, and our criminal rejoiced.
Perhaps the rich men he could only assume were inside were bleeding hearts, too…
"Le Café Musain…" he read, haltingly. The greed in his eyes sparkled as he opened the splintering door.
Tears nearly sprang to the greedy eyes when they swept across the front room.
It was empty.
"Ay, missus," Thenardier called, motioning to a hideous ogre of a woman he could only assume was the proprietress. She wiped her hairy paws on her filthy apron.
"Ma'am Houcheloup, more like," she replied. "Well, sit ye-self down and let's see if we can't give you yesterday's pickings." She motioned to a chair with uneven legs and turned to disappear into her kitchen which was emitting a perturbing smoke.
Thenardier was slighted. "And I ain't good enough for whatever you got fresh?" he sniped angrily, his mind momentarily
"Haven't got anything fresh." The Ogress gestured around the front room. "You see any customers?"
"Where they at, anyhow?" Thenardier.
A flash went through the Ogress's eyes then, and for a moment she tensed. "Haven't seen a customer all day, dearie. To be truthful, we ain't open. But the good Lord tells us always to help the beggars!"
Thenardier shifted. He wasn't a beggar. Why, he had 20 francs in his pocket at the very moment. Which… he had begged off a mostly deaf church-goer. He was a beggar, perhaps, but still!
"So," The shrill tone of the Ogress's voice pierced his thoughts. "How's about them pickings?"
Random question: Does Alfred Doolittle from My Fair Lady remind you of Thenardier at all? And whil I'm on the subject, does Sherlock Holmes remind you of Higgins? I have so a strong picture of Sherlock Higgins in my mind that I can't help but picture Watson as Pickering. Drop a review if you want, and thanks for reading! Come back for shiny new chapters as soon as my mind regurgitates them. Bye!