of
his whole being. "'Tis a fine, stirring, terrible picture the historian
gives us of the doomed city. Ahem!... 'And then, as if the birds of the
air had carried the news, it became known all over northern Africa that
Carthage was about to fall. And then, from the dark and dismal corners
of the land, from the wasted frontiers of the desert, from the snowy
lairs and caverns of the Atlas, there came creeping and crawling to the
coast the most abject of the human race--black, naked, withered beings,
their bodies covered with red paint, their hair cut in strange fashions,
their language composed of muttering and whistling sounds. By day they
prowled around the camp, and fought with the dogs for the offal and the
bones. If they found a skin, they roasted it on ashes, and danced
around it in glee, wriggling their bodies and uttering abominable cries.
When the feast was over, they cowered together on their hams, and fixed
their gloating eyes upon the city, and expanded their blubber-lips and
showed their white fangs. At last-'"

A piercing scream came from Frances.

"Thousand devils!" Madigan burst forth, enraged at the interruption.

It was only that Bep and Fom, in the midst of a finger conversation
carried on politely with a deaf-and-dumb alphabet, had had their
attention attracted by the ghastly word-picture made so vivid by their
father's voice. So, wearying of the innocuous desuetude of things, it
occurred to them to present for Frank's entertainment a bodily
representation of what the words meant to their minds. Safe in the
obscurity of the table-cloth's circular shadow, down on the floor they
wriggled, they prowled, they cowered and gloated and expanded their
blubber-lips and showed their fangs. If they did not utter abominable
cries, it was only because that particular detail was not needed to send
the smallest Madigan into hysterics.

"Leave the room!" cried Madigan. "Leave the room, you ox!" looking
wrathfully, but generally, down at the disturbance.

And three small Madigans, feeling that they had paid a small price for
freedom, crept and crawled to the door--the most abject of the Madigan
race till they were fairly outside, when they became the most jubilant.

"'At last,'" went on Madigan, a lingering growl of resentment in his
voice, "'the day came. The harbor walls were carried by assault and the
Roman soldiers passed into--'"

"Father," interrupted Sissy, with the exasperating air of one who knows
how