A word of severe blame from the master for grave contravention of rules set the spark to the smouldering fire of discontent. A short, thick-set man, with tousled red hair and tawny beard, on whom the blame had fallen, threw down his tool at de Maurel's feet. "Blame? Blame?" he snarled, showing his yellow teeth like an ill-conditioned cur, "nothing but blame in this place of malediction. Are we beasts that we should be made to work and risk our lives for a tyranny that would make a slave of every free citizen?" "You'll soon become a beast, _mon ami_," retorted de Maurel coolly, "if you refuse to work; a useless beast and a burden to the State, fit only to be cast into a ditch, or thrown as food for foreign cannon. Pick up your tool and show that you are a man and a free citizen by doing your duty for France." "Not another stroke will I do," growled Leroux sullenly, "till I've eaten and drunk my fill, which I've not done these past twenty days. Not another stroke, do you hear? And if I lift that accursed tool again it will be to crack your skull with it! Do you hear, _mon General_? I am under one sentence for murder already--another cannot do me much more harm. So look to yourself--what? for not another stroke of work will I do ... _Foi de_ Paul Leroux." "Then by all means go and eat and drink your fill, friend Leroux," rejoined de Maurel imperturbably; "go, and wait as leisurely as you please for the hour when the Emperor's orders send you to join your battalion in Poland. Never another stroke of work will you do in this factory, _mon ami_, but 'tis the Russian cannons who will eat their fill of you." Then he turned to the overseer. "Mathurin!" he called peremptorily. "Yes, _mon General_!" "Give Leroux the money that is due to him. He is no longer in my employ." "Name of a dog ..." came with an ominous imprecation from Leroux, "is this the way to treat an honest citizen?..." "There is no honest citizen, my man," spoke de Maurel firmly, "save he who toils for France. Get you gone! Get you gone, I say! France has no use for slackers." "You'll rue that, General, on my faith," here interposed one of Leroux' mates in tones that held an overt threat. "No one can finish this crushing save Leroux. If you dismiss him now, some of us go with him ... and the twelve hundred cannon-balls of this high calibre which the Emperor hath ordered will not be completed for want of a few skilled men." "Those of you who wish to go," retorted de Maurel loudly, "can go hence at once, and to hell with the lot of you," he added, with a sudden outburst of contemptuous anger. "Have I not said that France hath no use for slackers? You grumblers! you miserable, dissatisfied curs! Go an you wish! The workshop stinks of your treachery!"