Citizen Rateau was once more rendered helpless by a tearing fit of coughing. But from afar, down the street, there came one or two assenting cries. "Well spoken, young man! As for me, I never trusted that bloodhound!" And a woman's voice added shrilly: "His hands reek of blood. A butcher, I call him!" "And a tyrant!" assented the original spokesman. "His aim is a dictatorship, with his minions hanging around him like abject slaves. Why not Versailles, then? How are we better off now than in the days of kingship? Then, at least, the streets of Paris did not stink of blood. Then, at least----" But the speaker got no farther. A hard crust of very dry, black bread, aimed by a sure hand, caught him full in the face, whilst a hoarse voice shouted lustily: "Hey there, citizen! If thou'lt not hold thy tongue 'tis thy neck that will be recking with blood o'er soon, I'll warrant!" "Well said, citizen Rateau!" put in another, speaking with his mouth full, but with splendid conviction. "Every word uttered by that jackanapes yonder reeks of treason!" "Shame!" came from every side. "Where are the agents of the Committee of Public Safety? Men have been thrown into prison for less than this." "Shame!" "Denounce him!" "Take him to the nearest Section!" "Ere he wreaks mischief more lasting than words!" cried a woman, who tried as she spoke to give to her utterance its full, sinister meaning. "Shame! Treason!" came soon from every side. Voices were raised all down the length of the tables--shrill, full-throated, even dull and indifferent. Some really felt indignation--burning, ferocious indignation; others only made a noise for the sheer pleasure of it, and because the past five years had turned cries of "Treason!" and of "Shame!" into a habit. Not that they knew what the disturbance was about. The street was long and narrow, and the cries came some way from where they were sitting; but when cries of "Treason!" flew through the air these days, 'twas best to join in, lest those cries turned against one, and the next stage in the proceedings became the approach of an Agent of the Sûreté, the nearest prison, and the inevitable guillotine. So every one cried, "Shame!" and "Treason!" whilst those who had first dared to raise their voices against the popular demagogue drew together into a closer hatch, trying no doubt to gather courage through one another's proximity. Eager, excited, a small compact group of two men--one a mere boy--and three women, it almost seemed as if they were suffering from some temporary hallucination. How else would five isolated persons--three of them in their first youth--have dared to brave a multitude?