urning, Van Landing looked into the little face upraised to his, then lifted his hat. She was so enveloped in the big coat which came to her heels that for half a moment he could not tell whether she was ten or twenty. Then he smiled.
"Thank you," he said. "I don't know that I care to see. I don't know why I stopped."
"Oh, but it is perfectly grand, seeing them is! You can see everything up there"—a little bare hand was waved behind her in the direction of the porch—"and nothing down here. And you looked like you wanted to see. There have been kings and queens, and princes and princesses, and dukes and duchesses, and sirs, and—" She looked up. "What's the lady name for sir? 'Tisn't siress, is it?"
"I believe not." Van Landing laughed. "I didn't know there was so much royalty in town." "There is. They are royals—that kind of people." Her hand pointed in the direction of the house from which could be heard faint strains of music. "They live in palaces, and wave wands, and eat out of gold plates, and wear silk stockings in the morning, and—oh, they do everything that's splendid and grand and magnificent and—"
"Do you think people are splendid and grand and magnificent because they live in palaces and wear—"
"Goodness gracious!" The big blue eyes surveyed the speaker with uncertainty. "Are you one of them, too?"
"One what?"
"Damanarkists. Mr. Leimberg is one. He hates people who live in palaces and wave wands and have dee-licious things to eat. He don't believe in it. Mr. Ripple says it's because he's a damanarkist and very dangerous. Mr. Leimberg thinks men like Mr. Ripple ought to be tarred and feathered. He says he'd take the very last cent a person had and give it to blood-suckers like that"—and again the red little hand was waved toward the opposite side of the street. "Mr. Ripple collects our rent. I guess it does take a lot of money to live in a palace, but I'd live in one if I could, though I'd try not to be very particular about rents and things. And I'd have chicken-pie for dinner every day and hot oysters for supper every night; and I'd ask some little girls sometimes to come and see me—that is, I think I would. But maybe I wouldn't. It's right easy to forget in a palace, I guess. Oh, look—there's somebody else going in! Hurry, mister, or you won't see!"
Following the child up the flight of stone steps, Van Landing stood at the top and looked across at the arriving cars, whose occupants were immediately lost to sight in the tunnel, as his new acquaintance called it, and then he looked at her.
Very blue and big and wonder-filled were her eyes, and, tense in the effort to gain the last glimpse of the gorgeously gowned guests, she stood on tiptoe, leaning forward eagerly, and suddenly Van Landing picked her up and put her on top of the railing. Holding on to his coat, the child laughed gaily.