n the light of her lamp, stood a tiny boy.

He was dressed in tights, green on one side, red on the other; on his
head he had a fool's cap with horns.

Close up to the platform stood a woman wrapped in a black shawl. She
seemed to be talking to the boy.

He advanced his red leg and his green leg by turns, and drew them back
again. At last he took three steps forward on his meagre shanks and held
out his hand to the woman.

She took what he had in it, and disappeared into the darkness.

He stood motionless for a moment, then he muttered some words and burst
into tears.

Presently he stopped, and said: "Maman m'a pris mon sou!"--and fell to
weeping again.

He dried his eyes and left off for a time, but as often as he repeated
to himself his sad little history--how his mother had taken his sou from
him--he was seized with another and a bitterer fit of weeping.

He stooped and buried his face in the curtain. The stiff, wrinkly
oil-painting must be hard and cold to cry into. The little body shrank
together; he drew his green leg close up under him, and stood like a
stork upon the red one.

No one on the other side of the curtain must hear that he was crying.
Therefore he did not sob like a child, but fought as a man fights
against a broken heart.

When the attack was over, he blew his nose with his fingers, and wiped
them on his tights. With the dirty curtain he had dabbled the tears all
over his face until it was streaked with black; and in this guise, and
dry-eyed, he gazed for a moment over the fair.

Then: "Maman m'a pris mon sou"--and he set off again.

The backsweep of the wave leaves the beach dry for an instant while
the next wave is gathering. Thus sorrow swept in heavy surges over the
little childish heart.

His dress was so ludicrous, his body so meagre, his weeping was so
wofully bitter, and his suffering so great and man-like----But at home
at the hotel--the Pavillon Henri Quatre, where the Queens of France
condescended to be brought to bed there the condor sat and slept upon
its perch.

And it dreamed its dream--its only dream--its dream about the snow-peaks
of Peru and the mighty wing-strokes over the deep valleys; and then it
forgot its rope.

It uplifted its ragged pinions vigorously, and struck two sturdy
strokes. Then the rope drew taut, and it fell back where it was wont to
fall--it wrenched its claw, and the dream vanished.----Next morning the
aristocratic English family was much conc