r against his shoulder and fell asleep,
while the boy fingered the knives, jangled the key-rings, clipped
grass stalks with the scissors, and wound the watches one after the
other. The sun was low before Grimshaw left them. "When you are grown
up," he said, "remember that Pierre Pilleux sang to you of life."

"_Oui, monsieur_," the boy said politely. "But I should like a watch."

Grimshaw shook his head. "The song is enough."

Thereafter he sang to any one who would listen to him. I say that he
sang--I mean, of course, that he spoke his verses; it was a minstrel's
simple improvisation. But there are people in the villages of southern
France who still recall that ungainly, shambling figure. He had grown
a beard; it crinkled thickly, hiding his mouth and chin. He laughed a
great deal. He was not altogether clean. And he slept wherever he
could find a bed--in farmhouses, cheap hotels, haylofts, stables, open
fields. Waram's few hundred pounds were gone. The poet lived by his
wits and his gift of song. And for the first time in his remembrance
he was happy.

Then one day he read in _Le Matin_ that Ada Rubenstein was to play
"The Labyrinth" in Paris. Grimshaw was in Poitiers. He borrowed three
hundred francs from the proprietor of a small cafe in the Rue Carnot,
left his pack as security, and went to Paris. Can you imagine him in
the theatre--it was the Odeon, I believe--conscious of curious, amused
glances--a peasant, bulking conspicuously in that scented auditorium?

When the curtain rose, he felt again the familiar pain of creation. A
rush of hot blood surged around his heart. His temples throbbed. His
eyes filled with tears. Then the flood receded and left him trembling
with weakness. He sat through the rest of the performance without
emotion of any sort. He felt no resentment, no curiosity.

This was the last time he showed any interest in his old existence. He
went back to Poitiers, and then took to the road again. People who saw
him at that time have said that there was always a pack of dogs at his
heels. Once a fashionable spaniel followed him out of Lyons and he was
arrested for theft. You understand, he never made any effort to
attract the little fellows--they joined on, as it were, for the
journey. And it was a queer fact that after a few miles they always
whined, as if they were disappointed about something, and turned
back....

He finally heard that Dagmar had married Waram. She had waited a
decent inter