window of a small estaminet, and
went in.

It was a little beer-shop of the humblest kind--and just started. At
a little deal table, brand-new, a middle-aged burgher of prosperous
appearance was sitting next to the barmaid, who had deserted her
post at the bar--and to whom he seemed somewhat attentive; for their
chairs were close together, and their arms round each other's
waists, and they drank out of the same glass.

There was no one else in the room, and Barty was about to make
himself scarce, but they pressed him to come in; so he sat at
another little new deal table on a little new straw-bottomed chair,
and she brought him a glass of beer. She was a very handsome girl,
with a tall, graceful figure and Spanish eyes. He lit a cigar, and
she went back to her beau quite simply--and they all three fell into
conversation about an operetta by Victor Masse, which had been
performed in Malines the previous night, called _Les Noces de
Jeannette_.

The barmaid and her monsieur were trying to remember the beautiful
air Jeannette sings as she mends her angry husband's breeches:

"Cours, mon aiguille, dans la laine!
Ne te casse pas dans ma main;
Avec de bons baisers demain
Jean nous paira de notre peine!"

So Barty sang it to them; and so beautifully that they were all but
melted to tears--especially the monsieur, who was evidently very
sentimental and very much in love. Besides, there was that ineffable
charm of the pure French intonation, so caressing to the Belgian
ear, so dear to the Belgian soul, so unattainable by Flemish lips.
It was one of Barty's most successful ditties--and if I were a
middle-aged burgher of Mechelen, I shouldn't much like to have a
young French Barty singing "Cours, mon aiguille" to the girl of my
heart.

Then, at their desire, he went on singing things till it was time to
leave, and he found he had spent quite a happy evening; nothing gave
him greater pleasure than singing to people who liked it--and he
went singing on his way home, dreamily staring at the rare gas-lamps
and the huge comet, and thinking of his old grandfather who lay
dying or dead: "Cours, mon aiguille, it is good to live--it is good
to die!"

Suddenly he discovered that when he looked at one lamp, another lamp
close to it on the right was completely eclipsed--and he soon found
that a portion of his right eye, not far from the centre, was
totally sightless.

The shock was so great that he had to