han there is in the
quarter of the Bank--in fact, a great deal less."

"Why should the ouvriers fight with the Germans, Arnold--to them it
matters little whether Paris is taken by the Germans or not--it is not
they whose houses will be sacked, it is not they who will have to pay
the indemnity."

"No, but at least they are Frenchmen. They can talk enough about the
honor of France, but it is little they do to preserve it. They shout,
'the Prussians must be destroyed,' and then go off quietly to their
cabarets to smoke and drink. I do not admire the bourgeois, but I do not
see anything more admirable among the ouvriers. They talk grandly but
they do nothing. There is no difficulty in getting volunteers for the
war companies among the National Guard of the centre, though to them the
extra pay is nothing; but at Belleville and Montmartre the war companies
don't fill up. They rail at the bourgeois but when it comes to fighting
outside the walls I will wager that the shopkeepers show the most
courage."

"They will fight when there is anything to fight for," she said,
confidently, "but they don't care to waste their time on the walls when
there is nothing to do, and the Germans are miles away."

"Well, we shall see," he replied, grimly. "Anyhow, I wish it were all
over, and that we were on our way home. You have never seen a ship yet,
Minette. You will be astonished when you go on board one of the great
liners," and as they walked along the Boulevards he told her of the
floating palaces, in one of which they were to cross the ocean, and
forgetting for a time the questions that absorbed her, she listened with
the interest of a child hearing a fairy-tale. When they neared
Montmartre they separated, for Minette would never walk with him in her
own quarter.

The next morning, November 28th, the order was issued that the gates
were to be closed and that no one was to be allowed to pass out under
any pretext whatever. No one doubted that the long-expected sally was to
be carried out. Bodies of troops marched through the streets, trains of
wagons with munitions of war moved in the same direction, and in an hour
all Paris knew that the sortie was to take place somewhere across the
loop formed by the Marne.

"It is for to-morrow," Pierre Leroux exclaimed, running into Cuthbert's
room, "we are to parade at daybreak. The gates are shut, and troops are
moving about everywhere."

"All right, Pierre; we have been looking for it for