"Then you are against the strike?" cried Madame Rasseneur, without leaving the counter.
And as he energetically replied, "Yes!" she made him hold his tongue.
"Bah! you have no courage; let these gentlemen speak."
Étienne was meditating, with his eyes fixed on the glass which she had served to him. At last he raised his head.
"I dare say it's all true what our mate tells us, and we must get resigned to this strike if they force it on us. Pluchart has just written me some very sensible things on this matter. He's against the strike too, for the men would suffer as much as the masters, and it wouldn't come to anything decisive. Only it seems to him a capital chance to get our men to make up their minds to go into his big machine. Here's his letter."
In fact, Pluchart, in despair at the s
