te, the real Pierrette, _my_
Pierrette, to me--my sister, my wife, my Pierrette of Montreuil!

The manager was exclaiming joyfully:--

"Here is a good night's work! Eighteen thousand francs!"

The Queen now came forward, and, taking Pierrette's hand, said in her
gay, kindly manner:--

"You see, my child, there was no other way in which you could honourably
earn your _dot_ in a single hour. To-morrow I shall take you back to the
cure of Montreuil, who will, I trust, absolve us both. He will forgive
you for playing in a comedy once in your life."

Here the Queen, with a gracious bow, turned to me. To poor, bewildered,
stupid _me_!

"I hope," said she, "that M. Mathurin will deign to accept Pierrette's
fortune. I have added nothing to it; she has earned it all herself!"

[Illustration: "SHE HAS EARNED IT ALL HERSELF!"]

_The Queer Side of Things._

The Judge's Penance

[Illustration]

"Your crime," said Lord Justice Pimblekin, "is the most heartless,
atrocious, inhuman, and horrible that it has ever been my misfortune to
hear of: your long and cold-blooded premeditation; the cynical
indifference to the result of your atrocities, combined with the delight
with which you have wallowed in human gore; your contempt for all the
dictates of honesty, truth, pity, and good faith; your greed,
ingratitude, treachery, savageness, meanness, and cannibalism; all these
things stamp you as the most atrocious, unmitigated and loathsome
scoundrel, savage, monster, and vampire that ever wallowed in the foul
and fathomless quagmire of infinite and immeasurable dastardliness.

[Illustration]

"Under these circumstances I ought to inflict upon you the severest
penalty which the law allows. I say it is my unmistakable duty to
sentence you to penal servitude for life, with the cat once a week.

"Mercy would be thrown away upon you.

"Under these circumstances I will disregard my palpable duty, and render
the whole proceedings a farce, by sentencing you to a fine of forty
shillings, or a month."

The fine being immediately paid, the prisoner left the court amid the
congratulations of his friends.

New laurels were added to the already superfoliated wreath of Lord
Justice Pimblekin by this fresh masterpiece of judicial wisdom.

He was already the most renowned of all the judges on the Bench, and the
admiration and envy of the whole judicial and forensic body.

His verdicts had a character of their own; the severity