The officer turned and disappeared. After the lapse of a few moments a dozen words of command were shouted, and upon them followed the sharp click of hilt on scabbard as the sabres fell home.
After a pause it became evident that the barricade was being destroyed. And then lights flashed here and there. In a compact column the cavalry advanced at a trot. The street was empty.
Citizen Morot turned away and sat down on a chair that happened to be placed near the window. His finely-drawn eyebrows were raised with a questioning weariness.
“Pretty work!” he ejaculated. “Pretty work for—my father's son! So grand, so open, so noble!”
He waited there, in the darkness, until the cavalry had been withdrawn and the local firemen were at work upon the barricade. Then, when order was fully restored, he left the house, walking quietly down the length of the insignificant little street.
Ten minutes later he entered the tobacco-shop in the Rue St. Gingolphe. Mr. Jacquetot was at his post, behind the counter near the window, with the little tin box containing postage-stamps in front of him upon his desk. He was always there—like the poor. He laid aside the Petit Journal and wished the new-comer a courteous, though breathless, good evening.
The salutation was returned gravely and pleasantly. The Citizen Morot lingered a moment and remarked that it was a warm evening. He never seemed to be in a hurry. Then he passed on into the little room behind the shop.
There he found Lerac, the foreman of the slaughter-house. The butcher was pale with excitement. His rough clothing was dishevelled; his stringy black hair stood up uncouthly in the centre of his head, while over his temples it was plastered down with perspiration and suet pleasingly mingled.
“Well?” he exclaimed, with triumphant interrogation.
“Good,” said Morot. “Very good. It marches, my friend. It marches already.”