Page:The Children Who Followed the Piper.djvu/27

 Town Council that this man's an alien, and that he cannot maintain a claim against Your Worships," said the thin-lipped Treasury-Remembrancer at the other side of the table.

"Here's the fifty gulders in a bag," said the Mayor, "and the Sergeant has my orders to show you the way to an eating house where you can have a meal at our expense," said the Mayor. "And we're very busy at this time o' the day."

But the Piper had gone past the Sergeant. He went out and he did not come back for the fifty gulders that lay on the table.

And what did he do after that? All in his reds and yellows he stood in the market place on that spring day. He put the pipe to his mouth and he put his elbow to the bag and he began to play. At the first sound of his pipes the children ran out of the houses—children capped and bare-headed, children barefooted and shod. Boys and girls they came, rich men's, poor men's, tinker's, tailor's, soldier's, sailor's children. "A nice thing, to be sure," said the Aldermen who