"Ho, ho," he laughed, "ho, ho, ho, ho!"

The child threw his arms over his head in a gesture of unconscious
melodrama. "I cannot bear it--you are hurting it--I--I will kill you if
you do not stop." And he flew at his enemy, using his close-cropped
bullet-head as a battering ram.

For some seconds the absurd battle continued, and then, as unexpectedly
as he had begun it, the boy gave it up, and as the fiddler laughed
harshly, and the fiddle screeched, threw himself on the warm, dusty
grass and cried aloud.

There was a pause, after which, in silence, the old man groped his way
to the boy and knelt by him. "Hush, _mon petit_," he beseeched, "old
Luc-Ange is a monster to tease you. Do not cry, do not cry."

A curious apple, leaning over to listen, fell from its bough and dropped
with a thud into the grass.

The little Norman sat up. "I am not crying," he declared, turning a
brown, pugnacious face towards his late foe, "see, there are no tears."

The man touched his cheeks and eyelids delicately with his dirty
fingers. "True--no tears. But--why, why did you----"

"I was screaming because that noise was so horrible."

"And--that noise gave you pain?"

Bullet-Head frowned. Like all Normans, he resented his mental privacy