And sometimes now I fancy that possibly I may never see Her: but that one day, when I am lying in my coffin, She will press Her lips to mine—and I shall never know.
A PLEASANT ENTERTAINMENT.
"I have here," said the Showman, "the most interesting entertainment to be witnessed on earth! Walk up! walk up, and judge for yourselves!" And with that he beat the drum and blew shrilly on the pipes.
The music travelled to the ears of his audience with a difference: or so it seemed to them, as they stood before the booth. Some heard in it, through the discordant hubbub of the fair, the rattle of vehicles and the tramp of feet in the busy thoroughfares of a great city; for others, it was the whistling of birds in the hedgerows; and to some, like the restless pulsations of the sea. To each, according to his memories and his mood. But the music of the Showman was a single tune for all.
"Walk up! walk up!" bawled the grey-coated Showman, blowing at the pipes and pounding on the drum.
"Darned if I wouldn't go in, if I had the brass!" quoth a lean, unshaven, shabby-looking man, who stood in front of the booth with his hands in his pockets.
"I'll stand treat, if you like!" cried a sunken-eyed young woman, whose cheap and much-bedraggled finery matched aptly enough with her wan and haggard countenance. It was the impulse of a moment, but she was the puppet of impulse and danced on the wires at the slightest touch of chance.
"Right you are!" cried the man.