There was another pause. “If it’s all above board I shall have no objection,” Antoine muttered, apparently reflecting. “You know I don’t want to mix myself up with your underhand dealings.” “But there are no underhand dealings about it,” Félicité resumed, smiling at the old rascal’s scruples. “Nothing can be more simple: you will presently leave this room, and go and conceal yourself in your mother’s house, and this evening you can assemble your friends and come and seize the town-hall again.” Macquart did not conceal his extreme surprise. He did not understand it at all. “I thought,” he said, “that you were victorious.” “Oh! I haven’t got time now to tell you all about it,” the old woman replied, somewhat impatiently. “Do you accept or not?” “Well, no; I don’t accept—I want to think it over. It would be very stupid of me to risk a possible fortune for a thousand francs.” Félicité rose. “Just as you like my dear fellow,” she said, coldly. “You don’t seem to realise the position you are in. You came to my house and treated me as though I were a mere outcast; and then, when I am kind enough to hold out a hand to you in the hole into which you have stupidly let yourself fall, you stand on ceremony, and refuse to be rescued. Well, then, stay here, wait till the authorities come back. As for me, I wash my hands of the whole business.” With these words she reached the door. “But give me some explanations,” he implored. “I can’t strike a bargain with you in perfect ignorance of everything. For two days past I have been quite in the dark as to what’s going on. How do I know that you are not cheating me?” “Bah! you’re a simpleton,” replied Félicité, who had retraced her steps at Antoine’s doleful appeal. “You are very foolish not to trust yourself implicitly to us. A thousand francs! That’s a fine sum, a sum that one would only risk in a winning cause. I advise you to accept.” He still hesitated. “But when we want to seize the place, shall we be allowed to enter quietly?” “Ah! I don’t know,” she said, with a smile. “There will perhaps be a shot or two fired.” He looked at her fixedly. “Well, but I say, little woman,” he resumed in a hoarse voice, “you don’t intend, do you, to have a bullet lodged in my head?” Félicité blushed. She was, in fact, just thinking that they would be rendered a great service, if, during the attack on the town-hall, a bullet should rid them of Antoine. It would be a gain of a thousand francs, besides all the rest. So she muttered with irritation: “What an idea! Really, it’s abominable to think such things!” Then, suddenly calming down, she added: “Do you accept? You understand now, don’t you?”