Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1898-06-11
WRITTEN FOR
The EVENING STAB
BY ROBTw.CHAr1BePS

cosysperr .Se S.o..s,u. ~ q,
her to him. He bent and searched her
| changed face.
| frost somewhere in the world, and the
| solemn harmony of the cannon swelled
with the swelling breeze, and the breeze
| stirred a broken feather on the dead birds
| stiffenirg wing.
CHAPTER wv.
| The Anatomy of Happiness.
| That night they closed the empty bird
| store; Hardwood lifted the wooden shutters
| into place and locked them. Hide carried
| the monkey into the dining room and in
| stalled it in a warm corner. Mehemet Ali,
J the parrot, viewed these proceedings with
| contempt 1t mattered little to him where
| he passed his pessimistie days. WEAKNESS
and vicious melancholy had marked him
for their own. Even when he ate he ate
as if he were making ironical conces-
sion to the weakness of some one else.
! Curiosity he had subdued, sinister solitude
| he courted. and bit when it was denied him.
| There had been time in earlier days when
he whistled the "Marseillaise"-when he
| croaked 'Vive fEmpereur" Now for a
! year he had been mute brooding in silence
among the noisy feathered inha bitants of
the bird store, dreaming, perhaps schem-
| lng-for he had the sly, slow eye of the
| oriental.
He bit Hardwood when that young man
I was bearing him to the dining room, and
when dropped automatically, sided under
a sofa. From this retreat he made daily
excursions, mounting all the furniture by
| aid of beak and claw sulleniy menacing
| those who approached.
Scheherazade had not recovered from
| her fright The characteristics of the big
| house cat had almost Disappeared she
covered when approached. she skunk when
! she moved; there was a Darkness in her
| eyes, stealth. almost a menace in tho
| Slow turning of her DIV INT hos
| early days of the siege milk was becoming
| too expensive to buy for a Honess; meat
also had increased swiftly in price that
| Ioiette was frightened, and haunted the
| market wistfully, scarcely daring to buy
| Vegetables, bread and wine. however, were
| plenty; so We're proclamationS from the
governor of Paris assuring everybody that
the city had ample provisions for months
to come. Most people thought that the In
| crease in the price of meat was only tenn
| porary-a mere furry caused by the con-
summation OF an event that was not yet
| entirely credited-the actual advent of the
Pruss!an army before Paris.
| The arrival of the Germans was like a
theatrical entrance; the audience was all
| faflS, the orchestra, thousand cannon
| They tuned up by batteries, west south
and finally north. as the vast circle of steel
| closed closer. closer and finally welded with
! the snap of trap. Then when the city
| and outer ring of forts were in turn them
| selves eEcrcled by a living iron ring when
| the full thunder from the battery of the
| tOuDie CIONI WIS ecnOe0 from st. Denis
Mont-Valerien. from Saint Cloud to Char
! enton, and again from the southeast north
ward to st. Denis, Paris began to under
stand.
| The first futile curiosity, the foolish ter
ror and fear of instant bombardment died
| out as the weeks passed and the crack of
| the frussian rified cannon had not vet
| awakened the hill echoes of yirofay The
| silly rroclamations urging the instant tear
| ing up of pavements, the fortifying of Gel
lars. the assuring of a water supply, were
| forgotten People began to realize that it
| takes months to establish siege batteries
| that for every gun capable of throwing a
smell into Paris the Germans would have
10 send to Germany. Fear vanished: how
long 1t would take to convey heavy cannon
from Berlin across France TO the Seine,
| And would not tie conveys be cut off by
| the franc-tireurs. by the provincial armies
! now organizing, by an uprising of outraged
people! surely the very land. the elements
| themselves, would rise and destroy these
DdrDGrlans and their wicked cannon TrO-
| Gnu the somber mystic, the Breton gov
ernor OF republican Paris, moved on his
darkened way, a flash of tinseled pomp &
shred OF pageantry, the last paladin riding
back into the gloom of the middle ages,
seeking light. fleeing light, wrapped to the
| eyes in the splendid mantle of the Trinity
So he rode, esquired by Faith dreaming
| Of saints and quests Of chivalry bordering
miracles As a figure for a Gobelin tapes
Try General Trochu would have been use
fui; In no other capacity, save perhaps in
| a clOister, would he have been of use in
| the nineteenth century
| When on the 18th of September the Prus-
sian advance guard was signaled and sa-
| luted by the forts of the west and south.
General Finoy's brave corps passed the
| gates and advanced to CretaiI The affair
was not serious-nothing was serious then.
And yet that was the very time when a
| crushing success might have electrified the
whole nation into such resistance that the
end of the war would not have arrived
| with the capitulation of the capital Was
/ 1t not possible to rapidly mass the two
| corps of Ninoy and Ducrot to crush the few
! thousand men of the advance guard? The
| moral effect of such a stroke would have
been stupendous.
But in this first engagement under the
walls of Paris the deplorable system was
| inaugurated and invariably followed in all
| subsequent operations around Paris. fight