began to relent a little, the plaintive music went on and on, and scant,
painful tears stood on the player's face.

At last he stopped, and frowning in a puzzled way, said hoarsely, "What
is the matter, Papillon, where have we got to?"

The dog's tail stirred in answer, and at the same moment the other
listener burst into loud, emotional sobs, and the old man remembered.
"That's it, that's it. It's the boy who made me remember--'_Te rappelles
tu, te rappelles--tu, ma Toinon?_' Why do you cry, little boy? Why do
you cry?"

The boy dried his eyes on his smock sleeve.

"It--I am ten, too big to cry," he returned, with the evasion born in
him of his race, adding with the frankness peculiar to his own
personality, "but I did cry. It was beautiful."

The old man rose, and took up the dog's lead.

"Beautiful. Yes. There was a time----" He paused for a second. "What is
your name, little one?"

"Victor-Marie Joyselle."

"_Eh b'en_, Victor-Marie Joyselle, listen to me. When you have learned
to play the violin----" but Bullet-Head interrupted him.

"How do you know that I mean to learn to play the violin?" he queried,
drooping the outer corners of his eyelids in quick suspicion, "I did not