Timid and embarrassed, like a child who has been guilty of a fault, Camille stood with bowed head, and when he saw how much his father had aged, he knew that it was his conduct which had wrought the sad change, and his contrition was deepened tenfold.
But as he was about to throw himself at his father's feet, Mons. Sauvallier, with a sudden movement, clasped him to his breast, exclaiming, in a voice full of tears, "No, Camille! in my arms! in my arms!"
Father and son, locked together in closest embrace, mingled their sobs, while Auguste and his wife, looking on, wept in sympathy.
The silence was broken by Andrée. 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.
"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 it to be lying, any more than a President considers the tough statements lying that he makes in his annual message. A showman and a politician must be allowed a little liberty of statement, or they couldn't carry on their business. Well, as I was saying, thishyer Major Microbe was in my show a matter of ten years ago, when we were in Cincinnati, and he was about as vicious as they make them. The Giant, who was a good seven-footer, working up to seven and a half feet, as an engineer might say, with the help of his boots and helmet, was the exact opposite of the Dwarf in disposition. He was altogether too good-tempered, for he was always trying to play practical jokes on the other Freaks. He did this without any notion of annoying them, but it was injudicious; he being, like all other Giants, weak and brittle.