“Ah!” he said, “a receipt for five hundred rifles with bayonets and shoulder-straps complete. 'Received of the Citizen Morot five hundred rifles with bayonets and shoulder-straps complete.--Antoine Lerac.'”
He folded the paper again and carefully tore it into very small pieces.
Then he turned in his chair and threw the papers into the ash-tray of the little iron stove behind him.
“I judged it best to be strictly business-like,” said the butcher, with moderately well-simulated carelessness.
“But yes, Monsieur Lerac,” with a shrug. “We of the Republic distrust each other so completely.”
The old gentleman looked from one to the other with a soothing smile.
“The brave Lerac,” he said, “is a man of business.”
“And,” he said, turning to Lerac, “you have them stored in a safe place? There is absolutely no doubt of that?”
“Very good. It is not for a short time only, but for some months. One cannot hurry the people. Besides, we are not ready. The rifles we bought, the ammunition we must steal.”
“They are good rifles--they are English,” said the butcher.
“Yes; the English Government is full of chivalry. They are always ready to place it within the power of their enemies to be as well armed as themselves.”
The old gentleman laughed--a pleasant, cooing laugh. He invariably encouraged humour, this genial philanthropist.
“At last Friday's meeting,” Lerac said shortly, “we enrolled forty new members. We now number four hundred and two in our _arrondissement_ alone.”
“Good,” muttered the Citizen Morot, without enthusiasm.
“And four hundred hardy companions they are.”
“Four hundred strong men,” broke in the old gentleman rather hastily. “Ah, but that is already a power.”
“It is,” opined Lerac sententiously, “the strong man who is the power. Riches are nothing; birth is nothing. This is the day of force. Force is everything.”
“Everything,” acquiesced Morot fervently. He was consulting a small note-book, wherein he jotted down some figures.
“Four hundred and two,” he muttered as he wrote, “up to Friday night, in the _arrondissement_ of the citizen--the good citizen--Antoine Lerac.”
The butcher looked up with a doubtful expression upon his coarse face. His great brutal lips twitched, and he was on the point of speaking when the Citizen Morot's velvety eyes met his gaze with a quiet smile in which arrogance and innocence were mingled.