Quick, madame! dance your pretty figures while yet I
laugh and before I curse. O stars and planets, look down on this mad
world and help me play! And, O monsieur, pardon me if I laugh; for
that either you or I are mad is a cock-sure. Dance, madame----"

He put the flageolet to his lips and blew. In a moment or two
harlequin and columbine appeared on the screen and began to caper
nimbly, naturally, with the wildest grace. The tune was a merry reel
and soon began to inspire the performer above. Her small dancers in a
twinkling turned into a gamboling elephant, then to a couple of
tripping fairies. A moment after, they were flower and butterfly, then
a jigging donkey; then harlequin and columbine again. With each
fantastic change the tune quickened and the dance grew wilder, till,
tired out, the woman spread her hands wide against the sheet, as if
imploring mercy.

The player tossed his flageolet over a headstone and rolled back on the
grave in a paroxysm of laughter. Above him the rooks had poured out of
their nests and were calling to each other.

"Monsieur," he gasped at last, sitting up and wiping his eyes, "was it
good this time?"

"It was quite different, I'll own."

"Then could you spare from the house one little crust of bread? For I
am famished."

The youth returned, in a couple of minutes, with some bread and cold
bacon.

"Of course," he said, "if you should meet either of us in the village
to-morrow you will not recognize us."

The little man bowed. "I agree," said he, "with your mother, monsieur,
that you must be educated at all costs."

MY BROTHER HENRY

By J. M. BARRIE

Strictly speaking I never had a brother Henry, and yet I can not say
that Henry was an impostor. He came into existence in a curious way,
and I can think of him now without malice as a child of smoke. The
first I heard of Henry was at Pettigrew's house, which is in a London
suburb, so conveniently situated that I can go there and back in one
day. I was testing some new Cabanas, I remember, when Pettigrew
remarked that he had been lunching with a man who knew my brother
Henry. Not having any brother but Alexander, I felt that Pettigrew had
mistaken the name. "Oh, no," Pettigrew said; "he spoke of Alexander
too." Even this did not convince me, and I asked my host for his
friend's name. Scudamour was the name of the man, and he had met my
brothers Alexander and Henry years before in Paris. Then I remembe