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 I hated to get my hands on these poor devils, so I tried to make them hear reason first.

"You have everything to lose, Calabre," I said; "your honor to begin with."

"Honor!" cried he. "Is it good to eat? What's the use of talking about a thing like that, when you know we may soon be all dead men; dead and blown away as if we had never existed?"

"Honor, indeed!" said Gueurlu; "that's a word they put on rich men's tombstones, but when we die, they shovel us into the common ditch. Can you tell by the smell if we had honor or not?"

"Joachim," said I, turning away from Gueurlu, "it is true a man does not amount to much all by himself, but get a lot of men together and it's a different story; many a little makes a mickle, you know, and when the rich are all swept away and forgotten, with their lying epitaphs, down to the very names they are so proud of, then the hardworking people of Clamecy will be known as her real nobility. We must not have it said that we too were rascals."

"Much I care!" said Gueurlu, but Calabre cried, "You are a pig-face! You care for nothing, but I am like Breugnon,—I do care what they say of me, and by St. Nicholas! the rich shall not have all the