by their applause, he becomes more foolhardy than ever, and even tries
to be droll, and standing on one leg, sings a little song that begins--

_"Maman m'a donne quat' sous Pour m'en aller a la foire, Non pas pour
manger ni boire, Alais pour m'regaler d'joujoux!"_

Then suddenly down he slips, poor boy, and breaks both his legs below
the knee on an iron rail, whereby he becomes a cripple for life.

All this sad little tragedy of a New-year's Eve plays itself anew. The
sympathetic crowd collects; Mimsey and Gogo weep; the heart-broken
parents arrive, and the good little doctor Larcher; and Mary and I look
on like criminals, so impossible it seems not to feel that we might have
prevented it all!

We two alone are alive and substantial in all this strange world of
shadows, who seem, as far as we can hear and see, no less substantial
and alive than ourselves. They exist for us; we do not exist for them.
We exist for each other only, waking or sleeping; for even the people
among whom our waking life is spent know hardly more of us, and what our
real existence is, than poor little Andre Corbin, who has just broken
his legs for us over again!

[Illustration]

And so, back to "Magna sed Apta," both saddened by this deplorable
misadventure, to muse and talk and marvel over these wonders; penetrated
to the very heart's core by a dim sense of some vast, mysterious power,
latent in the sub-consciousness of man--unheard of, undreamed of as yet,
but linking him with the Infinite and the Eternal.