Page:Mashi and Other Stories.djvu/48

40 with the glare of the sun, without a sound, save now and then the distant cry of a passing kite. Outside our garden-walls the hawker would pass with his musical cry of 'Bangles for sale, crystal bangles.' And I, spreading a snow-white sheet on the lawn, would lie on it with my head on my arm. With studied carelessness the other arm would rest lightly on the soft sheet, and I would imagine to myself that some one had caught sight of the wonderful pose of my hand, that some one had clasped it in both of his and imprinted a kiss on its rosy palm, and was slowly walking away.—What if I ended the story here? How would it do?"

"Not half a bad ending," I replied thoughtfully. "It would no doubt remain a little incomplete, but I could easily spend the rest of the night putting in the finishing touches."

"But that would make the story too serious. Where would the laugh come in? Where would be the skeleton with its grinning teeth?

"So let me go on. As soon as the doctor had got a little practice, he took a room on the ground-floor of our house for a consulting-chamber. I used then sometimes to ask him jokingly about medicines and poisons, and how much of this drug or that