the other, five glasses of pure gin. We rolled that human chopped meat, like so much sausage meat into sausage casing, into a half dozen linen sheets reluctantly sacrificed by Mademoiselle Felicité. And six sheets were not enough, for the blood trickled through the last one!"
While this tale, so evocative in its barbaric candor, was distressing young Laurent, he heard his name called by a great voice which was trying to make itself small.
"Hey, Master Laurent!… Master Lorki!"
Lorki! He had not been called that since leaving his father's house. He turned swiftly, in agony, expecting to see a ghost rise before him. And what was his joy in recognizing a stocky, bronzed fellow with twinkling eyes and a great curly beard.
"Vincent!" he cried, pale with emotion. "You, here!"
"At your service. Master Lorki. But sit down. My word! One would say I'd scared you. I'm foreman of the packing-room; you know, the women's workshop …"
This packing-room was the only part of the factory into which Laurent had not yet adventured. These low women, more brazen, more roystering, less patient than their companions, had never ceased frightening him. From his bed, at night, Laurent had often heard the clock strike the hour of deliverance. The women were released fifteen minutes before the men. Directly there arose, from the carters' door, the stamping, the galloping, the uproar of the unbridled fillies. Outside, however, they dawdled, dragging their feet. The clock struck once more. The men, in turn, packed up, more heavily, joking with each other in less sharp
