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Page 37
"Hallucinations," he barked to himself. "I believe I understand now
what is implied when people are said to have them."
Suddenly the spirals commenced to lengthen downward instead of upward.
To the amazement of the Meanest Trustee he discovered them shifting
into human shapes: here was the form of a child, here a youth, here a
lover and his lass, here a little old dame, and scores more; while into
the corners of the room drifted others that turned into the drollest of
droll pipers--with kilt and brata and cap. It made him feel as if he
had been dropped into the center of a giant kaleidoscope, with
thousands of pieces of gray smoke turning, at the twist of a hand, into
form and color, motion and music. The pipers piped; the figures
danced, whirling and whirling about him, and their laughter could be
heard above the pipers' music.
"Stop!" barked the Meanest Trustee at last; but they only danced the
faster. "Stop!" And he shook his fist at the pipers, who played
louder and merrier. "Stop!" And he pounded the arms of his chair with
both hands. "I hate music! I hate children! I hate noise and
confusion! Stop! I say."
Still the pipers played and the figures danced on; and the Meanest
Trustee was compelled to hear and see. To him it seemed an
interminable time. He would have stopped his ears with his fingers and
shut his eyes, only, strangely enough, he could not. But at last it
all came to an end--the figures floated laughing away, and the pipers
came and stood about him, their caps in their hands out-stretched
before him.
He eyed them suspiciously. "What's that for?"
"It is time to pay the pipers," said one.
"Let those who dance pay; that's according to the adage," and he smiled
caustically at his own wit.
"It's a false adage," said a second, "like many another that you follow
in your world. It is not the ones who dance that should pay, but the
ones who keep others from dancing--the ones who help to rob the world
of some of its joy. And the ones who rob the most must pay the
heaviest. Come!" And he shook his cap significantly.
A sudden feeling of helplessness overpowered the Meanest Trustee.
Muttering something about "pickpockets" and "hold-ups," he ferreted
around in his pocket and brought out a single coin, which he dropped
ungraciously into the insistent cap.
"What's that?" asked the head piper, curiously.
"It looks to me like money--good money--and I'm throwing it away on a
parcel of rascals."
"Come, come, my good man," and the piper tapped him gently on the
shoulder, in the fashion of a professional philanthropist when he
remonstrates with a professional vagrant; "don't you see you are not
giving your soul any room to grow in? A great deal of joy might have
reached the world across your open palm. Instead, you have crushed it
in a hard, tight fist. You must pay now for all the souls you've kept
from dancing. Come--fill all our caps."
"Fill!" There was something akin to actual terror in the voice of the
Meanest Trustee. He could feel himself growing pale; his tongue seemed
to drop back in his throat, choking him. "That would take a great deal
of money," he managed to wheeze out at last; and then he braced
himself, his hands clutched deep in his pockets. "I will never pay;
never, never, never!"
"Oh yes, you will!" and the piper's smile was insultingly cheerful.
"It was a great deal of joy, you know," he reminded him. "Come,
lads"--to the other pipers--"hold out your caps, there."
The Meanest Trustee had the strange experience of feeling himself
worked by a force outside of his own will; it was as if he had been a
marionette with a master-hand pulling the wires. Quite mechanically he
found himself taking something out of his pocket and dropping it into
the caps thrust under his very nose, and at the same time his pockets
began to fill with money--his money. In and out, in and out, his hands
flew like wooden members, until there was not a coin left and the last
piper turned away satisfied. He closed his eyes, for he was feeling
very weak; then he became conscious of the touch of a warm, friendly
hand on his wrist and he heard the voice of the old family doctor--the
one who had set his leg when he was a little shaver and had fallen off
the banisters, sliding downstairs.
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