unger in the streets and
of typhus in the prisons. And sacre nom!--you ask me to be precise! I'll
be precise in telling you where lies the fault. It lies in your lousy
administration. Do you call yourselves administrators? You--" He became
unprintable. "I have come here to shake you out of your torpor, and
by--I'll shake you out of it or I'll have the blasted heads off the lot
of you."

They shivered with chill fear under the wild glare of his sunken eyes.

"Well?" he barked after a long pause. "Are you all dumb as well as
idiots?"

It was the ruffian Forget who had the courage to answer him:

"I have told the People's Society that if the machine works badly it is
because the Citizen Carrier refuses to consult with the administration."

"You told them that, did you, you--liar?" screeched Carrier. "Am I not
here now to consult with you? And should I not have come before had you
suggested it? Instead, you have waited until, of my own accord, I should
come to tell you that your administration is ruining Nantes."

Goullin, the eloquent and elegant Goullin, rose to soothe him:

"Citizen Representative, we admit the truth of all that you have said.
There has been a misunderstanding. We could not take it upon ourselves
to summon the august representative of the Sacred People. I We have
awaited your own good pleasure, and now that you have made this
manifest, there is no reason why the machine should not work
effectively. The evils of which you speak exist, alas! But they are not
so deeply rooted that, working under your guidance and advice, we cannot
uproot them, rendering the soil fertile once more of good under the
beneficent fertilizing showers of liberty."

Mollified, Carrier grunted approval.

"That is well said, Citizen Goullin. The fertilizer needed by the
soil is blood--the bad blood of aristocrats and federalists, and I
can promise you, in the name of the august people, that it shall be
abundantly provided."

The assembly broke into applause, and his vanity melted to it. He stood
up, expressed his gratification at being so completely understood,
opened his arms, and invited the departmental president, Minee, to come
down and receive the kiss of brotherhood.

Thereafter they passed to the consideration of measures of improvement,
of measures to combat famine and disease. In Carrier's view there was
only one way of accomplishing this--the number of mouths to be fed must
be reduced, the diseased must be elim