moment's delay lessened their chances of getting a stand in the market-
place. Butchers and milkmen loitered, regardless of waiting customers;
a little company of soldiers caught up the chorus, and, to avoid
involuntary revolt, their sergeant halted them, that they might listen.
Gentlemen strolling by--doctor, lawyer, officer, idler--paused and forgot
the raw climate, for this marvellous voice in the unshapely body warmed
them, and they pushed in among the fast-gathering crowd. Ladies hurrying
by in their sleighs lost their hearts to the thrilling notes of:

"Little grey fisherman,
Where is your daughter?
Where is your daughter so sweet?
Little grey man who comes Over the water,
I have knelt down at her feet,
Knelt at your Gabrielle's feet---ci ci!"

Presently the wife of the governor stepped out from her sleigh, and,
coming over, quickly took Parpon's cap from his hand and went round among
the crowd with it, gathering money.

"He is hungry, he is poor," she said, with tears in her eyes. She had
known the song in her childhood, and he who used to sing it to her was in
her sight no more. In vain the gentlemen would have taken the cap from
her; she gathered the money herself, and others followed, and Parpon sang
on.

A night later a crowd gathered in the great hall of the city, filling it
to the doors, to hear the dwarf sing. He came on the platform dressed as
he had entered the city, with heavy, home-made coat and trousers, and
moccasins, and a red woollen comforter about his neck--but this comforter