d on the floor. Not until the song was over did she
lift them.

"Molly, My Darling, There's No One Like You" is a piece of music
permitting the making of strange sounds, and when Mr. Crimm sings it
the sounds are stranger. At the third verse he asked all present to
join in the chorus, and the effect was transforming. Bettina,
standing in front of him, eyes uplifted as if entranced, and hands
clasped tightly behind her back, was ready at the first word to join
in, and shrilly her young voice piped an accompaniment to the deep
notes of her official friend. With a nod of his head and a
time-beating movement of both hands, Mr. Crimm began his work of
leadership, and in five minutes every one in the room was around him,
save his wife, who kept her seat, her lips tight and her eyes on the
floor.

As a garment thrown off, the stiffness disappeared, and feet tapped
and heads moved to the rhythmic swing of first one song and then
another, but finally Mr. Crimm wiped his perspiring face and called
for silence.

"It's Archie's time now. Step up, Archie, and tell the ladies and
gentlemen how 'Mary Rode the Goat, She Did.' Shying is out of
fashion. Step lively, Archie. This, ladies and gentlemen--" Mr.
Crimm waved one hand and with the other grasped firmly the collar of
his young friend's coat and drew him forward, "is Mr. Archer Barbee,
who will now entertain you. Begin, Archie. Make your bow and begin."

For a moment Archie stood in solemn silence, hands crossed on his
breast and thumbs revolving rapidly. His lips made odd movements,
although from them came no sound, and vacantly he stared ahead of
him, in his eyes no expression, in his manner no hint of what was
coming. Short and fat, with face round and red, hair red and curly,
and ears of a prodigious size, he made a queer picture; and, ignorant
of his power of mimicry and impersonation, I kept my seat on the
piano-stool. That is for a while I kept it. When safety lay no
longer on it I took refuge on the sofa. First, smiles had followed
his beginning words, then shouts of laughter, then shrieks of it; and
little gasping screams and bending of bodies and convulsive doubling
up; and when finally he stopped we were spent and breathless, and for
a while I could not see. When again my eyes were clear, Fannie
Harris was standing by me.

"If you think you can stand up, the room is ready for dancing." She
pointed ahead of her. "Please look at Mrs. Mundy. She'l