When the door opened before the clown, Jacques cried out joyfully,
"Cheer up, Francis! Here is Slap-bang."
The child's face beamed with expectation. He raised himself upon his
mother's arm, and turned his head towards the two men as they entered.
Who was the gentleman in an overcoat beside his father, who smiled
good-naturedly, but whom he did not know? "Slap-bang," they told him. It
was all in vain. His head fell slowly back upon the pillow, and his
great sad blue eyes seemed to look out again beyond the narrow chamber
walls, in search, unceasing search, of the spangles and the butterfly of
the Slap-bang of his dreams.
"No," he said, in a voice which sounded inconsolable; "no; _this_ is not
Slap-bang!"
The clown, standing by the little bed, looked gravely down upon the
child with a regard of infinite kind-heartedness. He shook his head, and
looking at the anxious father and the mother in her agony, said smiling,
"He is right. This is not Slap-bang." And he left the room.
"I shall not see him; I shall never him again," said the child, softly.
But all at once--half an hour had not elapsed since the clown had
disappeared--the door was sharply opened, and behold, in his black
spangled tunic, the yellow tuft upon his head, the golden butterfly upon
his breast and back, a large smile opening his mouth like a money-box,
his face white with flour, Slap-bang, the true Slap-bang, the Slap-bang
of the circus, burst into view. And in his little white cot, with the
joy of life in his eyes, laughing, crying, happy, saved, the little
fellow clapped his feeble hands, and, with the recovered gaiety of seven
years old, cried out:
[Illustration: "BRAVO, SLAP-BANG!"]
"Bravo! Bravo, Slap-bang! It is he this time! This is Slap-bang! Long
live Slap-bang! Bravo!"