"Patience, Castillon, our day will come."
"Patience let it be. But it is beggarly hard to be able only to assemble and polish up for others these fine five-foot clarinets, on which one would so love to play the Ça Ira, while we spat our lead at the Prussians; and It will come, by my pipe, It will! But what would you? We are like the poor workpeople of the silk factories of Lyons and Tours, who see the holy bourgeois sporting the beautiful goods they themselves have woven! So you see, we could not go to our Section meetings, since we worked from six in the morning till twelve at night, without stopping. And in this labor for the country you set us the example, for if you were before us in the shop, old fellow, you left it after us."
"That was my duty; I demanded great efforts of you in the name of the Republic, I should share your fatigues."
"Hold, John. You are what we may call a man; a worthy man."
"Come, we are too old friends to be bandying compliments."
"Call it what you like, I repeat that you are a worthy man. Look—what did you say to us when you bought the place of our old master, Goodman Gervais? 'Here we are, a score of good fellows, working as one family like good republicans. Let us take count: The shop brings in, or should bring in, in income, so much. Good. From this income we must first take out the sum I must annually pay to Master Gervais, and at the end of ten years the establishment will belong to us. Up till then, we shall share the proceeds proportionately to the hours of labor put in by each of us. My wife, who keeps our books and manages the treasury, will have her share of the proceeds, like us.' It was in this fashion that you spoke to us, John. It was in your power, on becoming our employer, to exploit us, as the bourgeois do. But you, you shared with us as brothers, as good comrades. Ah, and now, to return to the purpose of my mission, for I have traveled far from it, here is the business. It is, as you see, a fortnight since we have been able to go either to our Sections or to the Jacobins or the Cordeliers, to keep track of events. Then, to-night, they beat the assembly. We knew vaguely, from one side and another, that something was simmering; but what it was that was simmering, and what it was simmering for—that was the rub! We could have learned by going to our Sections, but we were sworn, due to the urgency of our task, never to leave the shop before midnight, when work was stopped. Nevertheless, we were restless over what was taking place this evening in Paris. We asked ourselves whether we ought not to drop work anyhow, and go and lend a hand to our brothers, when they beat the assembly. So that finally my comrades sent me to you, John, to ask whether we should stick to the shop, or go to our Sections. Decide the question; we shall follow your advice."
"My advice is that we should work still more diligently to-night, for to-morrow and perhaps day after to-morrow we may have to go out in the street to hold a demonstration, a great demonstration."
"Let's get busy!" exclaimed Castillon, his face shining with ardor. "We have perhaps to exterminate a new intrigue of Pitt and Coburg, or a little scheme of the ex-nobles and the skull-caps? By my pipe, that's fine. And, ça ira; I have just finished a love of a musket; maybe I can test it on the blacks or the whites, on the Jesuits, their laymen, and the nobles! What an opportunity!"
"You will not have that sad chance."
"What, to mow down the enemies of the Republic, you call that a sad chance? You, my old fellow?"