e auctioneer took a glass of the wine,
and, lifting it, said: "Who shall I drink to, Parpon, my dear? What is
he?"

"Ten to one, a dauphin or a fool," answered Parpon, with a laugh like
the note of an organ. "Drink to both, Long-legs." Then he trotted away
to the Little Chemist.

"Hush, my friend!" said he, and he drew the other's ear down to his
mouth. "Now there'll be plenty of work for you. We're going to be gay
in Pontiac. We'll come to you with our spoiled stomachs." He edged
round the circle, and back to where the miller his master and the young
Seigneur stood.

"Make more fine flour, old man," said he to the miller; "pates are the
thing now." Then, to Monsieur De la Riviere: "There's nothing like hot
pennies and wine to make the world love you. But it's too late, too late
for my young Seigneur!" he added in mockery, and again he began to hum
in a sort of amiable derision:

"My little tender heart,
O gai, vive le roi!
My little tender heart,
O gai, vive le roi!

'Tis for a grand baron,
Vive le roi, la reine!
'Tis for a grand baron,
Vive Napoleon!"

The words of the last two lines swelled out far louder than the dwarf
meant, for few save Medallion and Monsieur De la Riviere had ever heard
him sing. His concert-house was the Rock of Red Pigeons, his favourite
haunt, his other home, where, it was said, he met the Little Good Folk
of the Scarlet Hills, and had gay hours with them. And this was a matter
of awe to the timid habitants.

At the words, "Vive Napoleon!" a hand touched him on the shoulder. He
turned and saw the stranger looking at him intently, his eyes alight.

"Sing it," he said softly, yet with an air of command. Parpon hesitated,
shrank back.

"Sing it," he insisted, and the request was taken up by others, till
Parpon's face flushed with a sort of pleasurable defiance. The stranger
stooped and whispered something in his ear. There was a moment's
pause, in which the dwarf looked into the other's eyes with an intense
curiosity--or incredulity--and then Medallion lifted the little man on
to the railing of the veranda, and over the heads and into the hearts
of the people there passed, in a divine voice, a song known to many, yet
coming as a new revelation to them all:

"My mother promised it,
O gai, rive le roi!
My mother promised it,
O gai, vive le roi!

To a