“I was sitting alone with the poor little boy, like--well I do not know what like--you must find a comparison for yourselves. I was comforting myself with the reflection that the key was on the inside and the door locked, for I was getting frightened as the monks began to sing in the yard below, one part going off to the left, as it were, and the other part to the right. Did you ever see two drunken men walking arm in arm, and lurching first to one side and then to the other? You may laugh, but by the nine Muses it was just like that. Then Papias grew tired and cross and kept asking where Agne was, till at last he began to cry. When I asked him what he was crying for, he said he had forgotten, I really am patient--you must all allow that--I did not do anything to him, but, just to give him something to play with, I took out the key, for there was nothing else at hand that he could not break, and gave it to him and told him to play a tune on it. This delighted him, and he really did it quite prettily. Then I looked over my burnt dress and was horrified to see how large the holes were, and it struck me that I might turn it, because when you turn a thing the spots, you know, do not show.” “You have invented that this very minute,” cried Orpheus laughing. “We know you. If you can only turn the laugh against yourself...” “No, really,” cried Dada, “the idea flew through my head like a bird through a room; but I remembered at once that a hole burnt through shows on both sides, so I threw the dress aside as past mending and sat down on the low stool to peep through the wicket by the door out at the yard; the singing had stopped and the silence frightened me almost as much. Papias had stopped his piping too, and was sitting in the corner where Orpheus sat to write his letter to Tauromenium.” “I know,” said Orpheus, “the inkstand was there, that the steward of the inn had lent us the day before.”