The words fell on the room like offal thrown in the midst of ravenous wolves. A hideous upheaval, a hoarse shout, a multitude of scrambling forms, and the listeners who had mistaken the drift of his first words rose in fury. Some one pulled the table from under him. There were shouts and blows, a confusion of bodies before his eyes, and babel let loose. In the midst of it he felt himself suddenly enveloped in a pair of wiry arms and dragged through the mêlée. He struggled, but the grip that held him was not to be shaken. Leaving behind the shouting, they passed out into the turning of a corridor, then through another into quiet and a garden. There his captor, setting him on his feet, drew back with a smile. Barabant, glancing up, beheld the lank military figure of an hour before, with his nose tipped in the air in impudent enjoyment. "Well, my knight-errant," he said quizzically, "the next time you preach the Republic, select a Sans-Culotte audience and not a Royalist café, or there may not be a Dossonville to rescue you." Barabant smoothed out his clothes, crestfallen, but resumed his dignity. "From the country!" his rescuer continued, and the amusement gave place to one of reflectiveness. "Dame! are they already crying for the Republic outside of Paris?" "They are. That is," Barabant added, "the masses are done with the king. The Girondins are not so radical." "H'm!" Dossonville said for all answer. He stood silent a moment, wrapped in his own thoughts, before he again questioned him: "And the Revolution: do you hear such opinions as you heard to-night in the provinces? Is there no sign of a reaction?" "No; everything is for more radical measures." With this answer, Dossonville seemed to dismiss the matter from his mind. He looked him over again, and a twinkle showing in his eyes, he asked: "More enthusiasm than friends, hey?" Barabant laughed. "True." "And what are you counting upon doing?" Barabant remained silent. "Good--discretion!" Barabant, determined to shift the inquiry, demanded point-blank: "What were you doing in a café of aristocrats?" "What were you?" Dossonville retorted. "There are many ways to serve the Revolution besides proclaiming it from the tops of tables. Leave me my ways. Do you think if I were an aristocrat I'd have taken the pains to save you? Come, young man, don't turn your back on opportunities. Swallow your pride and confess that there are not many more meals in sight." "I am but a day in Paris," Barabant answered; and then, lest he should seem to have relented: "there are a hundred ways to find a living." "Can you write? Have you written pamphlets?" Dossonville persisted. "What would you say to a chance to see that fine eloquence caught in black and white and circulating in the streets?" Barabant's face flushed with such a sudden delight that the other laughingly drew his arm into his and exclaimed: