"Yes, ma'am." Still it was as much as the schoolma'am, knowing Annie,
could justly expect.

Annie Pilgreen was an anaemic sort of creature with pale eyes,
ash-colored hair that clung damply to her head, and a colorless
complexion; her conversational powers were limited to "Yes, sir" and
"No, sir" (or Ma'am if sex demanded and Annie remembered in time). But
Happy Jack loved her; and when a woman loves and is loved, her
existence surely is justified for all time.

Happy Jack sent a despairing glance of appeal at the Happy Family; but
the Family was very much engaged, down by the stove. Cal Emmett was
fanning himself with _Mrs. Jarley's_ poppy-loaded bonnet and refreshing
his halting memory of the lecture with sundry promptings from Len Adams
who held the book. Chip Bennett was whittling his sword into shape and
Weary was drumming a tattoo in the great wooden bowl with the spoon he
used to devour poisoned rice upon the stage. The others were variously
engaged; not one of them appeared conscious of the fact that Happy Jack
was facing the tragedy of his bashful life.

Before he realized it, Miss Satterly had somehow managed to worm from
him a promise, and after that nothing mattered. The Wax-works, the
tree, the whole entertainment dissolved into a blurred background,
against which he was to stand with Annie Pilgreen, for the amusement of
his neighbors, who would stamp their feet and shout derisive things at
him. Very likely he would be subjected to the agony of an encore, and
he knew, beyond all doubt, that he would never be permitted to forget
the figure he should cut; for Happy Jack knew he was as unbeautiful as
a hippopotamus and as awkward. He wondered why he, of all the fellows
who were to take part, should be chosen for that tableau; it seemed to
him they ought to pick out someone who was at least passably
good-looking and hadn't such big, red hands and such immense feet. His
plodding brain revolved the mystery slowly and persistently.

When he remounted his wooden pedestal, thereby transforming himself
into a Chinese Giant of wax, he looked the part. Where the other
statues broke into giggles, to the detriment of their mechanical
perfection, or squirmed visibly when the broken alarm clock whirred its
signal against the small of their backs, Happy Jack stood immovably
upright, a gigantic figure with features inhumanly stolid. The
schoolma'am pointed him out as an example to the others, and pronounced