SAVED BY A LAUGH. "Ha, ha, ha!" BY S. P. R. felt that but a day or two at most would find me living. Martial law was ad I could not forbear laughing heartily, although I was in a most melancholy ministered very summarily at that time, plight. The scrambles and struggles and no shrift was given the condemned of the two precious young scamps for other than the bullet brought. that orange, and the artifices they used in turn to secure it, would tickle any one's humor. They were just under the pigeon-hole of a window that opened from a strong old house upon the Rue de G. I was on the other side of it, kept in durance by a most villanous band of Communists who had the day before arrested and held me till some scapegrace magistrate, of an hour's making and a day's authority, would take the trouble to sign an order for my execution. It was while staring out of the oakenbarred window upon an uninviting alley that I began laughing. Two of the street gamins who infested the quarter had retired here to discuss the proprietorship of a stolen orange and some other bits of plunder, and the way the two boys maintained their respective rights, and the cunning each one of them displayed, were so irresistibly amusing that it drove away for a moment even the thought of my precarious position. The time was the October of the Commune, the place a dingy old street near Montmartre. Wherein I had offended against the august champions of the red flag I could never clearly make out, but I fancy that the position gamin No. 2, availing himself of the I held under Monseigneur the Bishop other's momentary inattention to the was what instigated my arrest and de- object of their dispute, with a sudden tention. When one was taken into cus- wrench broke away with the prize in tody in those days one's period of life his fist and his comrade after him. was certain to come to an abrupt end- Presently both came back and divided ing before long. So when I was con- the orange between them. Then they ducted by a half dozen swarthy fellows, stood beneath the window grinning up in red shirts and with unclean complex- at me. ions, to this old stone house that had been made to serve as prison and fortress, I "Ha, ha, ha!" I laughed. The gamins started and looked up. "Halloo!" cried gamin No. 1. "Monsieur the jailbird is merry. Sing on, jailbird, sing on." But just then "Monsieur is jolly to-day," cried gamin No. I. "Monsieur is very jolly. The h Let me give him joy. He'll need it but I found myself alone. when Jacques Grange burns priming." door was closed, and when I tried Jacques Grange, I afterwards learned, was the name of the leader of my captors. "What would monsieur give to be an eel and crawl out, eh?" said gamin No. 2. found it was securely fastened. While puzzling my brain to ace for this phenomenon, it was again peated. This time the sound wa dull thud at the window. Whe approached it my heart gave a Whe Notwithstanding their petty taunts I for, strewed upon the floor were saw that both the young vagabonds fragments of the glass, and the s were well disposed toward me. Evi-oaken bar had been loosened and dently my merriment at their tricks, Who could have done this? had found favor for me in their eyes. peered out all was explained. "When is monsieur going to "young friends the gamins had return here gamin No. 1 made an expressive bringing with them another more gesture with the forefinger of his right chievous than themselves. And h and the thumb of his left hand. "Be they were no less than plotting i shot," I understood him to mean by escape. Before I could recover fr this pantomime. I would have answer- my surprise, one of them, swinging ed him, for misery is ready to grasp at big hatchet they had brought alo any sympathy no matter whence it gave a run, leaped up in the air, a comes, but just then one of the red- drove it against the yielding bar. J shirted guard, who had been patrolling the building, turned the corner of the alley and gave chase to the two youngsters with whose republican sentiments he fancied, I suppose, that I was tampering. Away went gamins Nos. 1 and 2, in a cloud of dust, and away went the guard after them, once in a while stopping to hurl a stone after them and to give utterance to some unctious sacres. then I showed myself, and my appe ance was followed by a pantomi caution of silence from all three. When he came back he looked up at me very severely, and shook his finger menacingly before going off to join his companions. Cramming my neck between frame and the bar I whispered them hand me the hatchet. They did so, a with a little cautious work I broke bar, loosened the framework, and b before me a way to liberty. How heart beat as I crept through the cl square hole and found my feet dangl without. A moment more and I wo be off, when suddenly I heard a s pressed gardez from the corner the building, and along gamin No came tearing, with a red shirt at That afternoon I fell into a troubled heels. I dropped from my perch & slumber for wearied nature will crave dashed down the alley with my libe rest even while sleepless care oppresses tors beside me. The Communist sho the mind-when I was awakened by a ed and discharged his musket, crashing sound in the room. I sprung luckily we had turned into a bl up, thinking that my hour had come, alley before he fired, and as he ca light, the third of the gamins, who striven to discover my benefactors, but lagged at the entrance of the alley, somehow I have never found a clew to a sleight of foot, the secret of which them. Once indeed, while passing elieve is known only to Parisian along the Boulevards, I saw a frantic nins, laid the red sprawling, and fruit vender in pursuit of a boy who ted off in another direction. The had plundered him, and who bore a ise was now up. I climbed a fence resemblance, I fancied, to gamin No. 1. found my way to an obscure But as all gamins are so much alike I eet, whence I succeeded in reaching have doubts of this gamin's identity house of a friend who was able and with mine. However that be I was ling to conceal me. Gamins No. 1 unable to assure myself, for the fugi2 parted company with me at a tive left me and his pursuer in a llar into which they sneaked, and quandary, and at the same time in a 3, judging from last appearances, maze of blank walls and fences, ade good his escape. where he had penetrated and disap Since the restoration of peace I have peared. A FRAGMENT. Life has pleasure, life has pain, Blackest hours and brightest. Gone and lost forever?—No! Not the least and lightest. In age we laugh at dreams of Youth. The world is something, none can doubt, Gay at heart are you, my child, Cares nor fears oppress thee; |