"Am I a Marat, maman Lemoine?" shouted the small man as he hammered his fists upon the counter. "For ten years and more I have been a customer in this place and...."
"Am I a Marat?" shouted the youth with the tow-coloured hair addressing the assembly indiscriminately. "Some of you here know me well enough. Jean Paul, you know—Ledouble, you too...."
"Of course! Of course I know you well enough, Jacques Leroux," came with a loud laugh from one of the crowd. "Who said you were a Marat?"
"Am I a Marat, maman Lemoine?" reiterated the small man at the counter.
"Oh! leave me alone with your quarrels," shouted the woman Lemoine in reply. "Settle them among yourselves."
"Then if Jacques Leroux is not a Marat," now came in a bibulous voice from a distant comer of the room, "and this compeer here is known to maman Lemoine, where are the real Marats who according to this fellow Friche, whom we none of us know, are spying upon us?"
"Yes! where are they?" suggested another. "Show 'em to us, Paul Friche, or whatever your accursed name happens to be."
"Tell us where you come from yourself," screamed the woman with the shrill treble, "it seems to me quite possible that you're a Marat yourself."
This suggestion was at once taken up.
"Marat yourself!" shouted the crowd, and the two men who a moment ago had been accused of being spies in disguise shouted louder than the rest: "Marat yourself!"