Four fiery horses drew a smart private carriage into the northern shipping town of Calais. Well, three fiery horses and one small piebald gelding named Milou, who really couldn't be arsed. He was tired, he was hungry and he had a terrible pain in his front off hoof that felt, for Milou was something of a hypochondriac, like the beginnings of navicular. However, this is not his story.

Inside the coach Jean Valjean tripled checked the boat tickets while Cosette picked sullenly and the lining of her muff, trying not to look as irritated as she felt. A particularly violent jolt of the carriage forced her head up into the carriages roof and she finally lost her composure, emitting a loud, high-pitched squeal of frustration.

"Calais to Douvres," said Valjean absently, "Douvres? Dover! Dover - must remember that!"

Cosette pursed her lips. Her father was really getting too into this England trip, she thought. Valjean was getting rather into it. What had began as a flight of necessity - away from the awful Sleazy Lawyer and the ever present spectre of Javert, had become a voyage of intellectual discovery for the old con. He was teaching himself English (not very successfully) and reading up on English history, contemporary politics, customs and cuisine. The latter had not taken him very long but he had found out one delightful piece of information: the English were not accustomed to cook with garlic. Now Jean Valjean had no particular animus against garlic and this snippet interested him for one reason only. Javert, his pursuer, persecutor and baleful shadow, loved garlic. The man was a kind of an anti-vampire and Valjean's overwhelming memory of the inspector's tenure in M-sur-M was that all the police reports that had come his way had bourn greasy fingerprints andthe tell-tale aroma of garlic butter. It made Valjean smile vaguely to think that, should the inspector decide to follow him, he would be utterly miserable doing so.
The carriage clattered up outside the largest inn in the town - Les Moutons de la Mer - and the coach driver jumped down of his box and opened the carriage door.

"Monsieur has an hour or so until he has to board - he might like to wait in the inn - or he could take a walk. I will see that his luggage is transferred on board." Valjean tipped the man and asked if there was interesting to see in town should he decide to take a walk.
"There aren't any . . . Junkshops, are there?" he asked furtively when he thought Cosette wasn't listening. The man replied that, as a matter of fact, there were some splendid brick-a-brac shops down by the dock. Valjean smiled gleefully then turned to his daughter, "Just going to take a little stroll about, darling. Wait for me in the inn."

"Where are you going, Papa?"

"Oh, nowhere," Valjean lied, blushing slightly before walking off. As he did so he could have sworn that one of the carriage horses eyed him with something very close to dislike.

Cosette strode off into the inn, knowing full well that her father was going in search of a junkshop. Well, that was just fine! If he didn't feel he could admit that he had a problem to he own daughter! She gave a hurt little sniff and then decided to look on the bright side - she felt a little more justified in her own deceit now. She unpicked the last of the stitching of her muff and withdrew the letter that she had sewn in there before leaving the rue Plumet. Striding over to the innkeeper she presented him with it, saying:

"Could you please keep this letter waiting for a M Marius Pontmercy - dark-haired, handsome fellow - there's a Napoleon in it for you."