"Ah, John, I would not have disturbed you," said Castillon, as he entered the room. "You were in conversation with your wife and her mother--perhaps I come at the wrong time?" "You are always welcome, my good Castillon. Be seated. What's afoot?" "Such as you see me, my friend, I come as an ambassador--but without emoluments. I shall not break the treasury of the Republic." "The ambassador of our comrades, no doubt; and what is the text of your embassy?" "This: For a fortnight we have none of us had the time to go to our Section meetings, we had to finish the order of guns and muskets for the nation; for that is sacred, it comes first before everything. To forge arms for our brothers at the front! Ah! by my pipe, they will be proud and happy, down there, to be able to slap the Prussians!" "Patience, Castillon, our day will come." "Patience let it be. But it is beggarly hard to be able only to assemble and polish up for others these fine five-foot clarinets, on which one would so love to play the _Ca Ira_, while we spat our lead at the Prussians; and It will come, by my pipe, It will! But what would you? We are like the poor workpeople of the silk factories of Lyons and Tours, who see the holy bourgeois sporting the beautiful goods they themselves have woven! So you see, we could not go to our Section meetings, since we worked from six in the morning till twelve at night, without stopping. And in this labor for the country you set us the example, for if you were before us in the shop, old fellow, you left it after us." "That was my duty; I demanded great efforts of you in the name of the Republic, I should share your fatigues." "Hold, John. You are what we may call a man; a worthy man." "Come, we are too old friends to be bandying compliments."