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The Enormous Room

heroism. "Will you shoot?" the father inquired politely. "Indeed it would be a big thing of which you might boast all your life: I, a planton, shot and killed a six-year-old child in a tree."—"C'est enmerdant," the planton countered, in some confusion—he may be trying to escape. How do I know?"—"Indeed, how do you know anything?" the father murmured quietly. "It's a mystère." The Imp, all at once fell. He hit the muddy ground with a disagreeable thud. The breath was utterly knocked out of him. The Wanderer picked him up kindly. His son began, with the catching of his breath, to howl uproariously. "Serves him right, the —— jackanapes," a Belgian growled.—"I told you so, didn't I?" Monsieur Petairs worringly cried: "I said he would fall out of that tree!"—"Pardon, you were right, I think," the father smiled pleasantly. "Don't be sad, my little son, everybody falls out of trees, they're made for that by God," and he patted The Imp, squatting in the mud and smiling. In five minutes The Imp was trying to scale the shed. "Come down or I fire," the planton cried nervously ... and so it was with The Wanderer's son from morning till night. "Never," said Monsieur Pet-airs with solemn desperation, "have I seen such an incorrigible child, a perfectly incorrigible child," and he shook his head and immediately dodged a missile which had suddenly appeared from nowhere.

Night after night The Imp would play around our beds, where we held court with our chocolate and our candles; teasing us, cajoling us, flattering us, pretending tears, feigning insult, getting lectures from Monsieur Peters on the evil of cigarette smoking, keeping us in a state of perpetual inquietude. When he couldn't think of anything else to do he sang at the top of his clear bright voice:

and turned a handspring or two for emphasis.... Mexique once cuffed him for doing something peculiarly mischievous, and he set up a great crying—instantly The Wanderer was