Nobody's Boy Part 15

"Will you play again?" she then asked, turning round to me.

Would I play? Play for an audience who had arrived at such a moment! I did not wait to be asked twice.

"Would you like a dance or a little comedy?" I asked.

"Oh, a comedy," cried the child. But the lady said she preferred a dance.

"A dance is too short," said the boy.

"If the 'distinguished audience' wishes, after the dance, we will perform our different roles."

This was one of my master's fine phrases. I tried to say it in the same grand manner as he. Upon second thought, I was not sorry that the lady did not wish for a comedy, for I don't see how I could have given a performance; not only was Zerbino absent, but I had none of the "stage fittings" with me.

I played the first bars of a waltz. Capi took Dulcie by the waist with his two paws and they whirled round, keeping good time. Then Pretty-Heart danced alone. Successively, we went through all our repertoire. We did not feel tired now. The poor little creatures knew that they would be repaid with a meal and they did their best. I also.

Then, suddenly, in the midst of a dance in which all were taking part, Zerbino came out from behind a bush, and as Capi and Dulcie and Pretty-Heart pa.s.sed near him, he boldly took his place amongst them.

While playing and watching my actors, I glanced from time to time at the little boy. He seemed to take great pleasure in what we were doing, but he did not move. He looked as though he was lying on a stretcher.

The boat had drifted right to the edge of the bank, and now I could see the boy plainly. He had fair hair. His face was pale, so white that one could see the blue veins on his forehead. He had the drawn face of a sick child.

"How much do you charge for seats at your performance?" asked the lady.

"You pay according to the pleasure we have given you."

"Then, Mamma, you must pay a lot," said the child. He added something in a language that I did not understand.

"My son would like to see your actors nearer."

I made a sign to Capi. With delight, he sprang onto the boat.

"And the others!" cried the little boy.

Zerbino and Dulcie followed Capi's example.

"And the monkey!"

Pretty-Heart could have easily made the jump, but I was never sure of him. Once on board he might do some tricks that certainly would not be to the lady's taste.

"Is he spiteful?" she asked.

"No, madam, but he is not always obedient, and I am afraid that he will not behave himself."

"Well, bring him on yourself."

She signed to a man who stood near the rail. He came forward and threw a plank across to the bank. With my harp on my shoulder and Pretty-Heart in my arms I stepped up the plank.

"The monkey! the monkey!" cried the little boy, whom the lady addressed as Arthur.

I went up to him and, while he stroked and petted Pretty-Heart, I watched him. He was strapped to a board.

"Have you a father, my child?" asked the lady.

"Yes, but I am alone just now."

"For long?"

"For two months."

"Two months! Oh, poor little boy. At your age how is it that you happen to be left all alone?"

"It has to be, madam."

"Does your father make you take him a sum of money at the end of two months? Is that it?"

"No, madam, he does not force me to do anything. If I can make enough to live with my animals, that is all."

"And do you manage to get enough?"

I hesitated before replying. I felt a kind of awe, a reverence for this beautiful lady. Yet she talked to me so kindly and her voice was so sweet, that I decided to tell her the truth. There was no reason why I should not. Then I told her how Vitalis and I had been parted, that he had gone to prison because he had defended me, and how since he had gone I had been unable to make any money.

While I was talking, Arthur was playing with the dogs, but he was listening to what I said.

"Then how hungry you all must be!" he cried.

At this word, which the animals well knew, the dogs began to bark and Pretty-Heart rubbed his stomach vigorously.

"Oh, Mamma!" cried Arthur.

The lady said a few words in a strange language to a woman, whose head I could see through a half open door. Almost immediately the woman appeared with some food.

"Sit down, my child," said the lady.

I did so at once. Putting my harp aside I quickly sat down in the chair at the table; the dogs grouped themselves around me. Pretty-Heart jumped on my knee.

"Do your dogs eat bread?" asked Arthur.

"Do they eat bread!"

I gave them a piece which they devoured ravenously.

"And the monkey?" said Arthur.

But there was no occasion to worry about Pretty-Heart, for while I was serving the dogs he had taken a piece of crust from a meat pie and was almost choking himself underneath the table. I helped myself to the pie and, if I did not choke like Pretty-Heart, I gobbled it up no less gluttonously than he.

"Poor, poor child!" said the lady.

Arthur said nothing, but he looked at us with wide open eyes, certainly amazed at our appet.i.tes, for we were all as famished as one another, even Zerbino, who should have been somewhat appeased by the meat that he had stolen.