He followed her into the hall. Suddenly she turned, looking gnomish. "I invite you to join our little party, Herr Schmidt!" she said with a good deal of effect. "A barty? But I am old—" "Please come! I do so _want_ you to come!" He smiled delightedly. "You are a nice little girl! Ach, yes, I will come if ze rest wish it also." "Oh, yes, they will! You see, it’s to jump over candles!" "To joomp? Candles?" She nodded. "Nell," entering the dining room, which was cleared for action, "isn’t it lovely—Herr Schmidt’s goin’ to jump them, too!" Her wicked little voice trembled with glee. "Oh!" said Nell, "oh, it’s very good of him!" Herr Schmidt looked on with benign interest as they arranged twelve candles, big, little, thin, fat, in a row on the floor, some in candlesticks and a few stuck on pieces of wood. He listened earnestly to Nell’s explanation. "Yes, yes, I understand. Every candle represents a month. Yes. I joomp—so!" He gave an elephantine leap in the air that sent Molly flying from the room. "And if I blow out any, I shall be onhappy zat month—ach, yes!" "And all you jump over without blowing out will be happy and prosperous months." "So! I understant. Shall I begin?" He did begin. He stood before the first candle drew his feet together, and—thud!—he was over and beaming round, breathless but triumphant. "Ach—he not out!" He smiled seraphically upon his rude, convulsed audience, which was strewn around helplessly on chairs and sofa. Then he prepared to manipulate the second candle. With a thud that shook the whole house, he cleared it triumphantly. "January, February! Ach, it is so easy!" "You’re a fairy, Herr Schmidt!" declared Denis. "I believe you’ve got gossamer wings hidden in your toes!" "You’re a bit muddled, O.B., aren’t you?" observed Ted. But the hackneyed and stale old saying that pride goes before a fall held good now. Herr Schmidt, overconfident, leapt buoyantly at his third candle and came down with a horrible squelch straight on it. "Ach, I’ve put—him out!" he ejaculated dismally. "No, have you?" said Ted. "Yes, I haf," he responded in all good faith, eying the flattened mass of wax. "It is March; I shall be unlucky." Then warily he started once more. He surmounted successfully April, May, June, and July. By that time his beaming smiles had given place to a deep and solemn earnestness infinitely more ludicrous. His face was very red, and his breath was very short. But on he went; came to grief over August; on again, over September, October, successfully, put November out, and leapt December with a bang that Denis declared made his teeth rattle in his head. "Zere!" He looked round on his audience much as a conqueror might have looked on the worlds he had conquered—with pride tempered by sadness for losses. "I shall be unlucky in March and August and November, but I joomp zem well, eh? Zo many not out, hein?" "Oh, beautifully," said Nell, wiping her eyes, "only three out!"