nd son, locked together in closest embrace, mingled their sobs,
while Auguste and his wife, looking on, wept in sympathy.

The silence was broken by Andree. The child had vanished for a moment,
but speedily reappeared, fondling her precious doll, which, it is
needless to say, had not been sold. Holding it out to the captain, she
said in her liveliest manner: "Here is Jeanne, uncle! You remember her?
Give her a kiss directly! Don't you think that she has grown?"

* * * * *

_The Queer Side of Things--Among the Freaks._

MAJOR MICROBE.

[Illustration]

"I've been in the show business now going on for forty-three years,"
said the Doorkeeper, "and I haven't yet found a Dwarf with human
feelings. I can't understand why it is, but there ain't the least manner
of doubt that a Dwarf is the meanest object in creation. Take General
Bacillus, the Dwarf I have with me now. He is well made, for a Dwarf,
and when he does his poses plastic, such as 'Ajax Defying the
Lightning,' or 'Samson Carrying off Delilah by the Hair,' and all the
rest of those Scripture tablows, he is as pretty as a picture, provided,
of course, you don't get too near him. He is healthy, and has a good
appetite, and he draws a good salary, and has no one except himself to
look after. And yet that Dwarf ain't happy! On the contrary, he is the
most discontented, cantankerous, malicious little wretch that was ever
admitted into a Moral Family Show. And he ain't much worse than an
ordinary Dwarf. Now, the other Freaks, as a rule, are contented so long
as they draw well and don't fall in love.

"The Living Skeleton knows that he can't expect to live long--most of
them die at about thirty-five--but, for all that, he is happy and
contented. 'A short life and a merry one is what I goes in for,' he
often says to me, and he seems to think that his life is a merry one,
though I can't myself see where the merriment comes in. So with all the
rest of my people. They all seem to enjoy themselves except the Dwarf.
My own belief is that the organ of happiness has got to be pretty big to
get its work in, and that there ain't room in a Dwarfs head for it
to work.

"I had a Dwarf with me once--Major Microbe is what we called him on the
bills, where he was advertised as the 'Smallest Man in the World,'
which, of course, he wasn't; but, then, every Dwarf is always advertised
that way. It's a custom of the profession, and we don't consider