u shan't be an orphan, _mon
brave_," he continued, bending over the child and putting his little
hands against his bearded face, "you couldn't bear such a calamity,
could you? And so you will call me _papa_."

"_Papa_," said Jean, with a grin.

"There, he has settled it," said Aristide. "_Moi je suis papa._ And you,
mademoiselle?"

"I am Auntie Anne," she replied demurely.

Saturday afternoons and Sundays were Aristide's days of delight. He
could devote himself entirely to Jean. The thrill of the weeks when he
had paraded the child in the market places of France while he sold his
corn cure again ran through his veins. The two rows of cottages
separated by the common, which was the whole of Beverly Stoke, became
too small a theatre for his parental pride. He bewailed the loss of his
automobile that had perished of senile decay at Aix-en-Provence. If he
only had it now he could exhibit Jean to the astonished eyes of St.
Albans, Watford--nay London itself!

"I wish I could take him to Dulau & Company," said he.

"Good Heavens!" cried Miss Anne in alarm, for Aristide was capable of
everything. "What in the world would you do with him there?"

"What would I do with him?" replied Aristide, picking the child up in
his arms--the three were strolling on the common--"_Parbleu!_ I would
use him to strike the staff of Dulau & Company green with envy. Do you
think the united efforts of the whole lot of them, from the good Mr.
Blessington to the office boy, could produce a hero like this? You are a
hero, Jean, aren't you?"

"Yes, papa," said Jean.

"He knows it," shouted Aristide with a delighted gesture which nearly
cast Jean to the circumambient geese. "Miss Anne, we have the most
wonderful child in the universe."

This, as far as Anne was concerned, was a proposition which for the past
three years she had regarded as incontrovertible. She smiled at
Aristide, who smiled at her, and Jean, seeing them happy, smiled largely
at them both.

In a very short time Aristide, who could magically manufacture boats
and cocks and pigs and giraffes out of bits of paper, who could bark
like a dog and quack like a goose, who could turn himself into a horse
or a bear at a minute's notice, whose pockets were a perennial mine of
infantile ecstasy, established himself in Jean's mind as a kind of
tame, necessary and beloved jinn. Being a loyal little soul, the child
retained his affection for Auntie Anne, but he was swept off his
little