opportunity he gave you than in the latter case?" I asked.

They laughed immoderately at this, and the wife declared that God had great judgment and discrimination, and was, moreover, a thorough student of human nature.

"Did he advise you to use the means you did to communicate with me?"

I mean

"I knew, Herr Pringle, that you were a man liking music. Every good man likes music, and my voice is excellent. I knew you were a man advanced in years. I mean no offense. that you are no longer young, and that your sleep is no longer sound. And so I said that if you did not answer my call when I had come six times you were not worthy the so great kindness I was intending for you. I said to my wife that the money I had taken would be much better to remain in my hands than in yours. But I knew that I should see the Herr Pringle."

I accepted the compliment in silence. "God grieves that money has not been distributed wisely in his universe," he continued, "and sometimes it is the man with money and sometimes the man without it whom he employs to make things equal."

"Have you been employed with frequency to act in this capacity?" I inquired.

Herr Helstrom and his wife seemed insulted by this, and the former replied that the need had come but once, and once the opportunity. I made mention of the Ten Commandments, asking them if they thought it worth while to heed the Eighth. They said that their bibles opened at the first page of Matthew, and they did not turn back.

"The Old Testament is for the Jews." This was said with some scorn.

I did not care to precipitate myself into a religious controversy, but felt strongly inclined to disprove the implication that the New Testament induces to theft.

"And now," said he, "whereas it originally was what you would call a highway robbery, it has become a loan, and the interest, which you as an American demand, you have had in an excellent

breakfast (we had been served with bread, butter and coffee) and a morning's entertainment. The Herr Pringle is, without doubt, satisfied."

Herr Helstrom nad apparently said all that he considered necessary, and was anxious for me to make my adieux.

"Herr Helstrom," said I, "you ought to succeed in the world. You have coolness and courage, and what is more valuable-originality."

I was urgently entreated to come again and bring my friend, Max. Then Herr Helstrom, having donned the customary working man's attire, instead of the apparel in which he had been arrayed previously, drove me about a mile and a half in a light wagon to the elevated railway. He grasped my hand warmly at parting, and I said to him:

"Mr. Helstrom, you are an unblushing scoundrel. But your rascality in inconveniencing me to the amount of two hundred and fifty dollars while traveling through your country was nothing. Your crime consists in having inflicted this country with your presence. Goodbye."

"Good-bye," said he, and mounted o his seat. Then he drove rapidly away, without looking backward.

When I arrived in town, a half hour later, I paid a visit to my banker. And that night, at the dinner table, I displayed my pass book. But the boys would not believe my tale-which I told them in part-insisting that I had made a haul at the races. In vain I declared that my racing days were over. Their incredulity angered me at last, and I put on my hat and went out to find Max. And Max sneered. But he was not loath to promise to go with me to visit the miscreants.

A month has passed since I took my morning's drive with Herr Helstrom. Every Sunday since, Max and I have set out to find him. Max is somewhat of a detective-there are only a few inches more than five feet of him-and we intend giving the little Swede a scare. But there are five roads diverging from the terminus of that line. One, only, remains unexplored. We can't miss it, next Sunday.

T was a blowy day in London. George Calloway, with his hat jammed over his eyes, his threadbare overcoat buttoned to the chin, and his hands in the comfortable depths

of the pockets, strode along at a determined gait rather at variance with the insignificance of his figure. So absorbed was he, and so rapid his gait, that he was half-way through a little knot of bystanders before he knew they were there, and found himself gazing with the rest at a street brawl. Two rough-looking persons, a man and a woman, were severely drubbing what appeared at first sight to be an animated sack of potatoes; but as the other side of the sack came into view in one of the gyrations of the scuffle Calloway saw with astonishment that it was a white-bearded dwarf, of grotesque proportions, who was receiving such severe punishment. The long, silvery beard gave him a venerable appearance; his stature, which could not have exceeded four feet, left him entirely at the mercy of those to whom mercy was unknown. Already the woman's claws had made blood trickle from his temple, and the man did not scruple to use nis heavy, nailed boots upon the misshapen form.

Calloway, given the stage setting and the lines, might have been a hero. He had a horror of injustice and a quickspringing sympathy that never stopped to measure what was opposed to it. Af sight of such an unequal struggle the blood rushed seething to his brain, and he sprang upon the dwarf's male assailant and caught him about the neck. Indignation lent strength to his lean arms and the unexpectedness of the attack

was in his favor. The man staggered and fell upon his back. But the woman, after one quick glance of surprise, left the dwarf to crawl into the crowd, and was upon Calloway like a fury. For a few brief seconds he kept her nails from his flesh. Then the man, unhurt, arose, and advanced upon him with clenched fist and the devil gleaming from his eyes.

The crowd was evidently with the she-cat and her mate.

"Slug 'im, Bill!" cried one.

"Rip 'is 'eart out!" urged another.

Things would have gone hard indeed with Calloway, but at this crisis came a warning cry of "Cops!" from a gamin on the skirts of the crowd, and the people surlily gave way as a burly policeman elbowed his way through them and grasped Bill's shoulder in time to save Calloway from a dangerous blow..

"'Ere, now, Bill Maguffin," said the blue-coat in a stern tone, "w'ot game are you up to now?"

""Tain't my fault, s'elp me," growled Maguffin. "Kate 'ere was a-standin' by the door when this little beast comes by an' insults 'er. I was at the winder an' I seed an' heard it all. So out I comes an' starts in to give 'im a lickin'. An' where's the man as wouldn't do the same when a villain insults 'is wife?" continued the lout, the beery bloom upon his coarse features doing unwilling duty as a flush of righteous indignation. The appeal was not lost on the crowd. A murmur of approbation came back.

"Yes. An' just as I started in, along comes this bloomin' idiot an' pokes 'is nose into the thing. 'E flung me down an' jumped on me, an' then went fer Kate. And that's the truth, the whole truth, an' nothin' but the truth, s'elp me," concluded the wily Maguffin.

The autocrat in blue turned an inquiring glance on Calloway, and all he knew took but a minute in the telling.

"Now, you little feller," said the policeman to the dwarf, "w'ot's yer mother call yer when you're home, and w'ot 'ave you got to say about this affair?"

The dwarf stopped in the act of mopping his bleeding face with a soiled handkerchief and spoke with a slight, peculiar accent impossible to transfer to paper.

"My name is Niko Pé," he said. "I was going home, policeman, when I saw this man you call Maguffin beating his wife in a very shameful manner. I expostulated with him, and at once both the man and woman turn upon mekick me scratch me, as you see, until this gentleman come along and take my part. It is not true that I insult the woman. What tell you, this is true, quite true."

The dwarf spoke with a dignity that conveyed the impression of truth. The policeman, puzzled, turned to question bystanders. But the crowd had melted magically, and the few gamins who remained averred they "didn't know nothin' about it," and certainly appeared to know if possible, a trifle less.

"Look 'ere, Bill," the policeman said, "you're a bad hegg, an' wife-beatin' is an old score against you. Do you want to go before 'is 'onor an' tell your story to 'im?"

Bill, with a shifty look in his eyes, begged to be excused.

"Do you, sir"-speaking to Calloway, "want ter make any charge against this man-though by your own account it was you that assaulted 'im?"

Calloway had a nervous dread of entanglements with police and courts, and said he would prefer to pursue his way in peace. The dwarf also declared himself satisfied with the outcome of events and the policeman, with the air of a judge charging a jury, gave Calloway and Niko Pé permission to depart, then proceeded to read Maguffin a long lecture on the punishment in store for him unless he forsook the error of his ways.

Calloway and the dwarf found they were going, for some distance at least,

in the same direction. They walked on together, Niko Pé volubly grateful, Calloway interested in his strange com. panion's curious yet refined mode of speech.

A little later Calloway found himself taking supper with the dwarf in a bare little room on the second floor of a very humble tenement not far from the scene of the brawl. Niko Pé had urged the invitation upon him, and Calloway was not unwilling, for a meal at the expense of a friend was a meal the less to pay for. The rude repast Lad been prepared by the aid of an oil stove -for although the day was chilly there was no other heat in the apartmentand over the tea and bloaters the two became fast friends.

When Calloway was comfortably disposed, pipe in hand, in the easiest chair, and Niko Pé, seated cross-legged upon a square of carpet, was puffing contentedly at a picturesque hookah or water pipe-then it was that the little man became confidential, touching for the first time upon the subject of his deformity.

"I was not born thus-no!" said he, reflectively, and some hidden fire of ine soul flashed in his hitherto mild eye. "Listen!" he continued; "I like you; I have looked well at you and Niko Pé has only to look at a man to know him, whether he is good or bad, yes. And you are true, and hate the wrong; therefore it is that I trust you with my secret. I was born in a far-away land-born as well-formed as a man might wish. I send my mind back, back just as far as I can remember, and I get a little glimpse of a sunny babyhood before he came into my life-th.s tormentor, this murderer of souls, this evil spirit. It was his business, yes, to take a child and make him over into a monstrous kettle; to take a man and mould him into a hideous shape for his fellows to laugh at and make merry with. He carried me away with him. I spend my days and nights in an embossed vase, which stands on end during the day and lies upon its side at night. Only my head may grow as God would have it; my crucified flesh grows into the embossments of the vase until, filling them, it can grow no more.

At

length-ah, what a length! think, think, of the misery and agony of those endless years, and go mad with the thinking— at length the work is declared complete, never to be undone; the mold is broken and I roll forth-thus as you now see

me.

"I tumble for kings and am the sport of courts. Yes, I have made monarchs laugh, and all the while a great flame rages within me, and a great resolve shapes all my actions and my aims. I live but for one thing-to find my destroyer who has ruthlessly stripped me of all man's sacred rights-liberty, equality, the power of development, the right to love-ah, yes, to find him, and to mete out to him such punishment as will fit the crime. For this I suffer and dare all. I escape from the cage of the court; I travel; I study; I select a fitting penalty, and set myself to acquire the means of inflicting it. And all the time I watch and seek and question. after years of time-I find him!"

At last,

The distorted face of the dwarf shone out from the gathering gloom of the evening with triumph and hatred and passion all stamped in ugly lines upon it. For a moment no sound was heard save their quickened breathing. Calloway was leaning forward, tense with a nameless dread.

"You-did-not-kill-him?" he panted. "Kill him?" echoed the dwarf with the inflection of scorn in his tones; "was it for that I had studied and schemed? Kill him?-no! yet he has often begged for death. Listen!" With a simple, impressive motion Niko Pé pointed with the mouthpiece of the hookah to the closed door at his right. Then: "He is there!" he said, quietly. "Come, you shall see."

Abandoning his pipe and his carpet, he rose, and went toward the door. Calloway, in spite of a repugnance and a fear, was fain to follow him. There was a slight crawling sensation at the pit of his stomach, for he was very sensitive by nature, and know not what his sensibilities might be called upon to bear. The dwarf opened the door, and they passed from the gloom of one room to the darkness of the other; then Niko Pé

made a light; the room filled with a steady but subdued glow. As Calloway's eye became accustomed to the light and began to distinguish objects about him, there came over him some such sickness as is felt in extreme personal peril. The frightened blood ran back to his heart, but he had no power to withdraw his gaze from the object that had enchained it.

On a dais at the further end of the room was a table draped in black. Behind the table sat a human figure, clothed in rich, dark stuffs. Motionless it sat, with its hands-such hands!-resting upon the table. They were but bones with a thin covering of yellow parchment. The awful face peering from a dark background of hangings was merely a parchment-covered skull, the skin, wrinkled as the skin of an old crone, hardly veiling the fleshless bones that forced themselves upon the unwilling sight. There was a stiffness and an artificiality about the figure that might lead an observer to doubt its humanity. But the eyes of the dead thing, wide open, rolled and gleamed with unnatural fire, and proved beyond doubt the existence of a living brain behind them. The thin lips were tightly closed; ages of sorrow must have shaped their curve. Over all the peaked features of the face brooded a weary agony, a still cry, as it were, inexpressibly heart-rending to contemplate. From a vessel upon the table ran a flexible tube which entered the body, not at the thin, tight-closed lips, but at an orifice in the yellow neck below.

Calloway, unable to stand, staggered into a sitting posture upon a box near the door. Niko Pé, drawing nearer the dread figure on the dais, gloated over his victim like some vulture over a corpse.

"Aye, you!" he poured forth, gesticulating the while, "you robbed me for years of the power to move. Well, can you move now-try! try! You imprisoned me, an innocent babe who had never wronged any, in a mold of unyielding clay. Well, are you any less a prisoner because you are not in the embrace of the hardened clay? You cheated me

out of all semblance to a man-are you now any more beautiful than I? Can you move one of those claws unless I pid you? Nay, you breathe only as I let you. Your body is mine to do with as I will; your soul-ah, you never had a soul.

"This tube contains in vapor the little sustenance you require. Some day, having wearied of my revenge, I cut the tube or neglect to feed the vessel. You wither-shrivel up like a piece of leather in a fire-and are no more. Aye, but that day is far off. Live, if you call it life, and, with every physical function suspended, let your brain, sleepless and ever active revolve the horror of your condition unceasingly, without help, without hope."

Such, shorn of its peculiarities of accent, was the tirade of Niko Pé. Calloway shivered at the vehemence of hate, yet drank all in from a morbid curiosity to know the whole truth. He understood that in some strange way, by the use of hypnotic or mesmeric arts of which he had become master, the dwarf had made his will supreme over that of his enemy; had taken from him the power to move, or speak, or live save by sufferance of another; had even suspended, to a great extent, the natural bodily functions; but had left the mind clear to turn over and over within itself the facts of its sins and its awful punishment. Then as the full horror of it all dawned upon him, Calloway forgot the dwarf's great injuries in the overwhelming presence of the injuries he had inflicted.

He rose excitedly. He could scarcely speak intelligently for emotion. His voice, hoarse and low, was strange to his own ears.

"Man, man!" he exclaimed, "this wrong cannot be. Unloose this poor creature from your power, or by Heaven-I am bound by no oath-I will make you by the power of the law. You will not? We shall see whether you will or not, wretch without heart!"

He ran from the room, passed through the apartments where they had taken supper, and on the way through knocked over the hookah and shattered the bauble into a hundred pieces. The dwarf's

voice, calling, pleading, threatening, cursing, rang in his ears, but did not check his course. Once out of the house he never stopped running until the nearest police-station was reached. What he told them, shaking with excitement and the strain of his exertion, need not be detailed; that they did not understand it goes without saying. All they could glean was that someone in Magpie Bend had laughed at the dignity of the lawor perhaps this threadbare individual who told strange tales was mad. Two policemen were ordered to accompany him to the tenement where Niko Pé dwelt, and instructions were given them in a stage aside to keep their conductor in hand until the matter of his sanity was beyond doubt. Calloway's conversation on the way back was not such as to dispel this doubt from the minds of his silent attendants. The three climbed the stairs to find Niko Pé sitting dejectedly in the inner chamber. The thing was sitting in its chair behind the table, as if but a moment had elapsed since Calloway's departure. On catching sight of the uncanny figure, the stolid officers were surprised into an exclamation apiece, and one went so far as to remark:

"Gad, Joe, but that's a rummy cove on the platform there!"

The dwarf had started up at their entrance, and now began talking excitedly, rummaging in a trunk the while.

"It was a joke, gentlemen-only a joke. I am Niko Pé, who has traveled all over the world with McMaster's Great Combined Shows. People pay to see me, but they pay more willingly to see my friend here, Pasquin, the wonderful ossified man; see, here is proof of what I say; yes, I was but playing a sorry joke on this very good gentleman with my tales of hypnotism and revenge."

He had fished a bundle of handbills from the depths of the trunk, and now handed one to each policeman and to Calloway. They were gaudy yellow affairs, with wretchedly executed cuts of Niko Pé and Pasquin, the printed mattér setting forth in exaggerated terms the tininess of the one and the stiff help