“It was a joke,” said Pierrot, and he laughed.  Then the King grew fierce and stormed and threatened.  But his rage and threats were in vain! for Pierrot only laughed.  Then the King appealed to him as man to man and implored him to tell him the truth; for he would have given his kingdom to believe that it was the real Pierrot who had met the Queen and that the adventure had been a joke.  Pierrot only repeated what he had said, and laughed and giggled inanely.

At dawn the prison door was opened and three masked men led Pierrot out through the courtyard into the garden.  The revellers had gone home, but here and there lights still twinkled and flickered and a stray note or two of music was still heard.  Some of the latest of the revellers were going home.  The dawn was grey and chilly; they led Pierrot through the alleys to the grass amphitheatre, and they hanged him on the horizontal beam which formed part of the primitive proscenium where he and Columbine had danced so wildly in the night.  They hanged him and his white figure dangled from the beam as though he were still dancing; and the new Pierrot, who was appointed the next day, was told that such would be the fate of all mummers who went too far, and whose jokes and pranks overstepped the limits of decency and good breeding.

THE GARLAND

The Referendarius had three junior clerks to carry on the business of his department, and they in their turn were assisted by two scribes, who did most of the copying and kept the records.  The work of the Department consisted in filing and annotating the petitions and cases which were referred from the lower Courts, through the channel of the Referendarius, to the Emperor.

The three clerks and their two scribes occupied a high marble room in the spacious office.  It was as yet early in April, but, nevertheless, the sun out of doors was almost fierce.  The high marble rooms of the office were cool and stuffy at the same time, and the spring sunshine without, the soft breeze from the sea, the call of the flower-sellers in the street, and the lazy murmur of the town had, in these shaded, musty, and parchment-smelling halls, diffused an atmosphere of laziness which inspired the clerks in question with an overwhelming desire to do nothing.

There was, indeed, no pressing work on hand.  Only from time to time the Referendarius, who occupied a room to himself next door to theirs, would communicate with them through a hole in the wall, demanding information on some point or asking to be supplied with certain documents.  Then the clerks would make a momentary pretence of being busy, and ultimately the scribes would find either the documents or the information which were required.

As it was, the clerks were all of them engaged in occupations which were remote from official work.  The eldest of them, Cephalus by name—­a man who was distinguished from the others by a certain refined sobriety both in his dark dress and in his quiet demeanour—­was reading a treatise on algebra; the second, Theophilus, a musician, whose tunic was as bright as his flaming hair, was mending a small organ; and the third, Rufinus, a rather pale, short-sighted, and untidy youth, was scribbling on a tablet.  The scribes were busy sorting old records and putting them away in their permanent places.