the factory, with regard to the inhabitants of
the neighborhood. He howled a great deal, but he carried neither stick
nor stone. A full-faced, fresh-colored man, with a formidable bass voice,
like a chorister's, asked him: "Will you not have a shot at those impious
dogs, who might bring down the Cholera on the country, as the curate told
us?"

"I will have a better shot than you," said the little man, with a
singular, sinister smile.

"And with what, I'd like to see?"

"Probably, with this," said the little man, stooping to pick up a large
stone; but, as he bent, a well-filled though light bag, which he appeared
to carry under his blouse, fell to the ground.

"Look, you are losing both bag and baggage," said the other; "it does not
seem very heavy."

"They are samples of wool," answered the man with the ferret's face, as
he hastily picked up the bag, and replaced it under his blouse; then he
added: "Attention! the big blaster is going to speak."

And, in fact, he who exercised the most complete ascendency over this
irritated crowd was the terrible quarryman. His gigantic form towered so
much above the multitude, that his great head, bound in its ragged
handkerchief, and his Herculean shoulders, covered with a fallow goat
skin, were always visible above the level of that dark and swarming
crowd, only relieved here and there by a few women's caps, like so many
white points. Seeing to what a degree of exasperation the minds of the
crowd had reached, the small number of honest, but misguided workmen, who
had allowed themselves to be drawn into this dangerous enterprise, under
the pretext of a quarrel between rival unions, now fearing for the
consequences of the struggle, tried, but too late, to abandon the main
body. Pressed close, and as it were, girt in with the more hostile
groups, dreading to pass for cowards, or to expose themselves to the bad
treatment of the majority, they were forced to wait for a more favorable
moment to effect their escape. To the savage cheers, which had
accompanied the first discharge of stones, succeeded a deep silence
commanded by the stentorian voice of the quarryman.

"The Wolves have howled," he exclaimed; "let us wait and see how the
Devourers will answer, and when they will begin the fight."

"We must draw them out of their factory, and fight them on neutral
ground," said the little man with the ferret's face, who appeared to be
the thieves' advocate; "otherwise there would be tr