nner with a mob of howling,
bloodthirsty Parisians in his antechamber, and who on the eve of his
execution slept well, despite his knowledge that within fifteen hours
his head would in all probability be lopped off by the guillotine to
gratify the lust for blood which was the chief characteristic of the
promoters of the first French Republic.

At six on the morning of Thanksgiving Day Jarley was sleeping
peacefully, but the youthful Jack was not. Thanksgiving Day was not a
holiday in his eyes, but a day set apart for work, thanks to his
father's indulgence in providing him with a football. He had gone to bed
the night before with the ball hugged tightly to his breast; and along
about ten o'clock, when Jarley himself had gone into the nursery to put
that treasured good-night kiss upon the forehead of his sleeping boy,
tired as he was and blue as he was, he had difficulty in repressing the
laughter that manifested itself within him, for Jack lay prone, face
upward, with the football under the small of his back, and seemingly as
comfortable as though he were resting upon eider-down.

"That is certainly a characteristic football attitude," Jarley said,
when Mrs. Jarley had come to see what had caused her husband's chuckle.

"Yes--and so good for the spine!" returned Mrs. Jarley.

The attitude was changed, but the ball was left where Jack would see it
the first thing on awaking in the morning. At six, as I have said,
Jarley was sleeping peacefully, but Jack was not. He had opened his
eyes some minutes before, and on catching sight of his treasured
football he began to grin. The grin grew wider and wider, until
apparently it got too wide for the bed, and the boy leaped out of his
couch upon the floor. The first thing he did was to pat the ball gently
but firmly, very much as a kitten manifests its interest in a ball of
yarn. Then his attentions to his new plaything grew more pronounced and
vigorous, and within fifteen minutes it had been chased out of the
nursery into the parental bedchamber. Still Jarley slept. Mrs. Jarley
was merely half asleep. She tried to tell Jack to be quiet; but she was
not quite wide awake enough to do so as forcibly as was necessary, and
the result was that instead of abating his ardor, Jack plunged into his
sport more vigorously than ever.

And then Jarley was awakened--and what an awakening it was! Not one of
those peaceful comings-to that betoken the tranquil mind after a good
rest, but a re