said the last-maker, and he uttered a peculiar
whistle.

"Come on," resumed the voice.

It was another barricade. This one, a little higher than the first, and
separated from it by a distance of about a hundred paces, was, as far as
could be seen, constructed of barrels filled with paving-stones. On the
top could be seen the wheels of a truck entangled between the barrels;
planks and beams were intermingled. A passage had been contrived still
narrower than the gangway of the other barricade.

"Citizens," said the last-maker, as he went into the barricade, "how
many of you are there here?"

The voice which had shouted, "Who goes there?" answered,--

"There are two of us."

"Is that all?"

"That is all."

They were in truth two,--two men who alone during that night, in that
solitary street, behind that heap of paving-stones, awaited the
onslaught of a regiment.

Both wore blouses; they were two workmen; with a few cartridges in their
pockets, and a musket upon each of their shoulders.

"So then," resumed the last-maker, in an impatient tone, "our friends
have not yet come!"

"Well, then," I said to him, "let us wait for them."

The last-maker spoke for a short time in a low tone, and probably told
my name to one of the two defenders of the barricade, who came up to me
and saluted me. "Citizen Representative," said he, "it will be very warm
here shortly."

"In the meantime," answered I laughingly, "it is cold."

It was very cold, in truth. The street which was completely unpaved
behind the barricade, was nothing better than a sewer, ankle deep in
water.

"I say that it will be warm," resumed the workman, "and that you would
do well to go farther off."

The last-maker put his hand on his shoulder: "Comrade, it is necessary
that we should remain here. The meeting-place is close by, in the
ambulance."

"All the same," resumed the other workman, who was very short, and who
stood up on a paving-stone; "the Citizen Representative would do well to
go farther off."

"I can very well be where you are," said I to him.

The street was quite dark, nothing could be seen of the sky. Inside the
barricade on the left, on the side where the passage was, could be seen
a high paling of badly joined planks, through which shone in places a
feeble light. Above the paling rose out, lost in the darkness, a house
of six or seven storys; the ground floor, which was being repaired, and
which was under-pinned, being closed