"You are under a mistake," replied Madame Elizabeth, "we have not been reading, we have been sewing; but supposing we were reading, is there any wrong in that? Have they made any law that forbids that?"
"No," answered Tison, "no—I only wondered how people could rattle paper and there be none there, but all the same—the ladies of course have a right to read, and we must be satisfied with that."
And she went out, looking right and left like a hound on the scent, and searching every corner of the room.
"I must see what kind of officials we have here to-day," said Tison to herself, slipping through the little side-door and through the corridor; "I shouldn't wonder if it were Toulan and Lepitre again, for every time when they two—right!" she ejaculated, looking through the outer door, "right! it is they, Toulan and Lepitre. I must see what Simon's wife has to say to that."
She slipped down the broad staircase, and passed through the open door into the porter's lodge. Madame Simon, one of the most savage of the knitters, had shortly returned from the guillotine, and was sitting upon her rush chair, busily counting on a long cotton stocking which she held in her hand.
"How many heads to-day?" asked Tison.
Madame Simon slowly shook her head, decorated with a white knit cap.
"It is hardly worth the pains," she said dismally,—"the machine works badly, and the judges are neglectful. Only five cars to-day, and on every one only seven persons." "What!" cried Tison, "only thirty-five heads to-day in all?"
"Yes, only thirty-five heads," repeated Madame Simon, shaking her head; "I have just been counting on my stocking, and I find only thirty-five seam-stitches, for every seam-stitch means a head. For such a little affair we have had to sit six hours in the wet and cold on the platform. The machine works too slowly, I say— altogether too slowly. The judges are easy, and there is no more pleasure to be derived from the executions."
"They must be stirred up," said Tison with a fiendish look; "your husband must speak with his friend, citizen Marat, and tell him that his best friends the knitters, and most of all, Simon's wife, are dissatisfied, and if it goes on so, the women will rise and hurry all the men to the guillotine. That will stir them up, for they do respect the knitters, and if they fear the devil, they fear yet more his proud grandmother, and every one of us market-women and knitters is the devil's grandmother."