Comedian,
"if the brute should break down after all!--and when I took such care
that the words should lie undisturbed-right before his nose!" With a
deep sigh the veteran started from his despondent attitude, and crept
along the floor as if for escape--so broken-down, so crestfallen. Every
eye was on that heartbroken face and receding figure; and the eye of
that heartbroken face was on the dog, and the foot of that receding
figure seemed to tremble, recoil, start, as it passed by the
alphabetical letters which still lay on the ground as last arranged.
"Ah! to what should he look for aid?" repeated the grandchild, clasping
her little hands. The dog had now caught the cue, and put his paw first
upon "WORTH," and then upon "BEAUTY."

"Worth!" cried the ladies--"Beauty!" exclaimed the Mayor. "Wonderful,
wonderful!"

"Take up the hat," said the child, and turning to the Mayor--"Ah! tell
him, sir, that what Worth and Beauty give to Valour in distress is not
alms but tribute."

The words were little better than a hack claptrap; but the sweet voice
glided through the assembly, and found its way into every heart.

"Is it so?" asked the old soldier, as his hand hoveringly passed above
the coins. "Upon my honour it is, sir!" said the Mayor, with serious
emphasis. The audience thought it the best speech he had ever made in
his life, and cheered him till the roof rang again. "Oh! bread, bread,
for you, darling!" cried the veteran, bowing his head over the child,
and taking out his cross and kissing it with passion; "and the badge of
honour still for me!"

While the audience was in the full depth of its emotion, and generous
tears in many an eye, Waife seized his moment, dropped the actor,
and stepped forth to the front as the man--simple, quiet, earnest
man--artless man!

"This is no mimic scene, ladies and gentlemen. It is a tale in real life
that stands out before you. I am here to appeal to those hearts that are
not vainly open to human sorrows. I plead for what I have represented.
True, that the man who needs your aid is not one of that soldiery which
devastated Europe. But he has fought in battles as severe, and been left
by fortune to as stern a desolation. True, he is not a Frenchman; he is
one of a land you will not love less than France,--it is your own. He,
too, has a child whom he would save from famine. He, too, has nothing
left to sell or to pawn for bread,--except--oh, not this gilded badge,
see, this is only