"But you left a message, bidding me wait for you!" I answered.
"I did?" he said. "No; I left a message asking you to follow us--if it pleased you."
"Then I never got it," I replied. "André told me----"
"Ah! André," he answered softly. And he shook his head.
"The rascal!" I said; "then he lied to me! And----"
But some one called the Curé to his place, and we had to part. At the same instant most of the talkers ceased; a moment, and only two were left speaking, who, without paying the least regard to one another, continued to hold forth to their neighbours, haranguing, one on the social contract; the other on the brigands--the brigands who were everywhere burning the corn and killing the people!
At last M. le Capitaine, after long waiting to speak, attacked the former speaker. "Tut, Monsieur!" he said. "This is not the time for theory. A halfpennyworth of fact----
"Is worth a pound of theory!" the man of the brigands--he was a grocer, I believe--cried eagerly; and he brought his fist down on the table.
"But now is the time!--the God-sent time, to frame the facts to the theory!" the other combatant screamed. "To form a perfect system! To regenerate the world, I say! To----"
"To regenerate the fiddlestick!" his opponent answered, with equal heat. "When brigands are at our very doors! when our crops are being burned and our houses plundered! when----"