it in mind, sirrah; and when you perform, give Perigord a wide berth. That is all."

He struck his horse at the last word, and rode off; sitting, like an old soldier, so straight in his saddle that he did not see what happened behind him, or that the boy sprang forward with a hasty cry, and would, but for the showman's grasp, have followed him. He rode away, unheeding and without looking back; and the boy, after a brief passionate struggle with his master, collapsed.

"You limb!" the man with the drum cried, as he shook him. "What bee has stung you? You won't be quiet, eh? Then take that! and that!" and he struck the child brutally in the face--twice.

Some cried shame and some laughed. But it was nobody's business, and there were a hundred delights within sight. What was one little boy, or a blow more or less, amid the whirl and tumult of the fair? A score of yards away a dancing girl, a very Peri--or so she seemed by the light of four tallow candles--was pirouetting on a rickety platform. Almost rubbing elbows with her was a philosopher, who had conquered all the secrets of Nature except cleanliness, and was prepared to sell infallible love-philtres and the potion of perpetual youth--for four farthings! And beyond these stretched a vista of wonders and prodigies, all vocal, not to say deafening. So one by one, with a shrug or a sneer, the onlookers melted away, until only our trio remained: Master Crafty Eyes counting his gains, the boy sobbing against the bank on which he had thrown himself, and the monkey gibbering and chattering overhead--a dark shapeless object on an invisible rope. For night was falling: where the fun of the fair was not were gloom and a rising wind, lurking cutpurses, and waste land.

The showman seemed to feel this, for having counted his takings, he kicked up the boy and began to pack up. He had nearly finished, and was stooping over the coil of rope, securing the end, when a touch on his shoulder caused him to jump a yard. A tall man wrapped in a cloak, who had come up unseen, stood at his elbow.

"Well!" the showman cried, striving to hide his alarm under an appearance of bluster. "And what may you want?"

"A word with you," the unknown answered.

The voice was so cold and passionless it gave Crafty Eyes a turn. "Diable!" he muttered, striving to pierce the darkness and see what the other was like. But he could not; so as to shake off the impression, he asked, with a sneer, "You are not a vicomte, 

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