d would murmur to himself in whistling
accents: "Here we are again."

There he was again, indeed, an old man by a dying fire, sitting among
the ashes of burnt-out jollities.

But on the morning of Jenny's visit the clown was very much awake. For
all Mrs. Raeburn's exhortations not to put fancies in the child's head,
Mr. Vergoe was very sure in his own mind of Jenny's ultimate destiny. He
was not concerned with the propriety of Clapton aunts, with the
respectability of drapers' wives. He was not haunted by the severe ghost
of Frederick Horner, the chemist. As he watched Jenny dancing to the
sugared melodies of "Cavalleria," he beheld an artist in the making:
that was enough for Mr. Vergoe. He owed no obligations to anything
except Art, and no responsibleness to anybody except the public.

"Here's a lot of pretty things, ain't there, my dear?"

"Yes," Jenny agreed, with eyes buried deep in a scarlet sleeve.

"Come along now and sit on this chair, which belonged, so they say, so
they told me in Red Lion Court where I bought it, to the great Joseph
Grimaldi. But then, you never heard of Grimaldi. Ah, well, he must have
been a very wonderful clown, by all accounts, though I never saw him
myself. Perhaps you don't even know what a clown is? Do you? What's a
clown, my dear?"

"I dunno."

"Well, he's a figure of fun, so to speak, a clown is. He's a cove
dressed all in white with a white face."

"Was it a clown in Punch and Judy?"

"That's right. That's it. My stars and garters, if you ain't a knowing
one. Well, I was a clown once."

"When you was a little boy?"

"No, when I was a man, as you might say."

"Are clowns good?" inquired Jenny.

"Good as gold--so to speak--good as gold, clowns are. A bit
high-spirited when they come on in the harlequinade, but all in good
part. I suppose, taking him all round, you wouldn't find a better fellow
than a clown. Only a bit high-spirited, I'd have you understand. 'Oh,
what a lark,' that's their motto, as it were."

Ensconced in the great Grimaldi's chair, Jenny regarded the ancient
Mischief with wondering glances and, as she sucked one of his lollipops,
thoroughly approved of him.

"Look at this pretty lady," he said, placing before her a colored print
of some famous Columbine of the past.

"Why is she on her toes?" asked Jenny.

"Light as a fairy, she was," commented Mr. Vergoe, with a bouquet of
admiration in his voice.

"Is she trying to reach on to the mantlepie