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It was in 1490—winterⒶ. Austria was far away from the world, and asleep; it was still the Middle Ages in Austria, and promised to remain so forever. Some even set it away back centuries upon centuries and said that by the mental and spiritual clock it was still the Age of Faith in Austria. But they meant it as a compliment, not a slur, and it was so taken, and we were all proud of it. I remember it well, although I was only a boy; and I remember, too, the pleasure it gave me.

Yes, Austria was far from the world, and asleep, and our village was in the middle of that sleep, being in the middle of Austria. It drowsed in peace in the deep privacy of a hilly and woodsy solitude where news from the world hardly ever came to disturb its dreams, and was infinitely content. At its front flowed the tranquil river, its surface painted with cloud-forms and the reflections of drifting arks and stone-boats; behind it rose the woody steeps to the base of the lofty precipice; from the top of the precipice frowned the vast castle of Rosenfeld, its long stretch of towers and bastions mailed in vines; beyond the river, a league to the left, was a tumbled expanse of forest-clothed hills cloven by winding gorges where the sun never penetrated; and to the right, a precipice overlooked the river, and

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between it and the hills just spoken ofⒶ lay a far-reaching plain dotted with little homesteads nested among orchards and shade-trees.

The whole region for leagues around was the hereditary property of prince Rosenfeld, whose servants kept the castle always in perfect condition for occupancy, but neither he nor his family came there oftener than once in five years. When they came it was as if the lord of the world had arrived, and had brought all the glories of its kingdoms along; and when they went they left a calm behind which was like the deep sleep which follows an orgy.

Eseldorf was a paradise for us boys. We were not overmuch pestered with schooling. Mainly we were trained to be good Catholics; to revere the Virgin, the Church and the saints above everything; to hold the Monarch in awful reverence, speak of him with bated breath, uncover before his picture, regard him as the gracious providerⒶ of our daily bread and of all our earthly blessings, and ourselves as being sent into the world with the one only mission, to labor for him, bleed for him, die for him, when necessary. Beyond these matters we were not required to know much; and in fact, not allowed to. The priests said that knowledge was not good for the common people, and could make them discontented with the lot which God had appointed for them, and God would not endure discontentment with His plans. This was true, for the priests got it of the Bishop.

It was discontentment that came so near to being the ruin of Gretel Marx the dairyman's widow, who had two horses and a cart, and carried milk to the market town. A Hussite woman named Adler came to Eseldorf and went slylyⒶ about, and began to persuade some of the ignorant and foolish to come privately by night to her house and hear “God's real message,” as she called it. She was a cunning woman, and sought out only those few who could read—flattering them by saying it showed their intelligence, and that only the intelligent could understand her doctrine. She gradually got ten together, and these she poisoned nightly with her heresies in her house. And she gave them Hussite sermons, all written out, to keep for their own, and persuaded them that it was no sin to read them.

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One day Father Adolf came along and found the widow sitting in the shade of the horse-chestnut that stood by her house, reading these iniquities. He was a very loud and zealous and strenuous priest, and was always working to get more reputation, hoping to be a Bishop some day; and he was always spying around and keeping a sharp lookout on other people's flocks as well as his own; and he was dissolute and profane and malicious, but otherwise a good enough man, it was generally thought. And he certainly had talent; he was a most fluent and chirpy speaker, and could say the cuttingest things and the wittiest, though a little coarse, maybe—however it was only his enemies who said that, and it really wasn't any truer of him than of others; but he belonged to the village council, and lorded it there, and played smart dodges that carried his projects through, and of course that nettled the others; and in their resentment they gave him nicknames privately, and called him the “Town Bull,” and “Hell's Delight,” and all sorts of things; which was natural, for when you are in politics you are in the wasp's nest with a short shirt-tail, as the saying is.

He was rolling along down the road, pretty full and feeling good, and braying “We'll sing the wine-cup and the lass” in his thundering bass, when he caught sight of the widow reading her book. He came to a stop before her and stood swaying there, leering down at her with his fishy eyes, and his purple fat face working and grimacing, and said—

“What is it you've got there, Frau Marx? What are you reading?”

She let him see. He bent down and took one glance, then he knocked the writings out of her hand and said angrily—

“Burn them, burn them, you fool! Don't you know it's a sin to read them? Do you want to damn your soul? Where did you get them?”

She told him, and he said—

“By God I expected it. I will attend to that woman; I will make this place sultry for her. You go to her meetings, do you? What does she teach you—to worship the Virgin?”

“No—only God.”

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“I thought it. You are on your road to hell. The Virgin will punish you for this—you mark my words.” Frau Marx was getting frightened; and was going to try to excuse herself for her conduct, but Father Adolf shut her up and went on storming at her and telling her what the Virgin would do with her, until she was ready to swoon with fear. She went on her knees and begged him to tell her what to do to appease the Virgin. He put a heavy penance on her, scolded her some more, then took up his song where he had left off, and went rolling and zigzagging away.

But Frau Marx fell again, within the week, and went back to Frau Adler's meeting one night. Just four days afterward both of her horses died! She flew to Father Adolf, full of repentance and despair, and cried and sobbed, and said she was ruined and must starve; for how could she market her milk now? What must she do? tell her what to do. He said—

“I told you the Virgin would punish you—didn't I tell you that? Hell's bells! did you think I was lying? You'll pay attention next time, I reckon.”

Then he told her what to do. She must have a picture of the horses painted, and walk on pilgrimage to the Church of Our Lady of the Dumb Creatures, and hang it up there, and make her offerings; then go home and sell the skins of her horses and buy a lottery ticket bearing the number of the date of their death, and then wait in patience for the Virgin's answer. In a week it came, when Frau Marx was almost perishing with despair—her ticket drew fifteen hundred ducats!

That is the way the Virgin rewards a real repentance. Frau Marx did not fall again. In her gratitude she went to those other women and told them her experience and showed them how sinful and foolish they were and how dangerously they were acting; and they all burned their sermons and returned repentant to the bosom of the Church, and Frau Adler had to carry her poisons to some other market. It was the best lesson and the wholesomest our village ever had. It never allowed another Hussite to come there; and for reward the Virgin watched over it and took care of it personally, and made it fortunate and prosperous always.

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It was in conducting funerals that Father Adolf was at his best, if he hadn't too much of a load on, but only about enough to make him properly appreciate the sacredness of his office. It was fine to see him march his procession through the village, between the kneeling ranks, keeping one eye on the candles blinking yellow in the sun to see that the acolytes walked stiff and held them straight, and the other watching out for any dull oaf that might forget himself and stand staring and covered when the Host was carried past. He would snatch that oaf's broad hat from his head, hit him a staggering whack in the face with it and growl out in a low snarl—

“Where's your manners, you beast?—and the Lord God passing by!”

Whenever there was a suicide he was active. He was on hand to see that the government did its duty and turned the family out into the road, and confiscated its small belongings and didn't smouch any of the Church's share; and he was on hand again at midnight when the corpse was buried at the cross-roads—not to do any religious office, for of course that was not allowable—but to see, for himself, that the stake was driven through the body in a right and permanent and workmanlike way.

It was grand to see him make procession through the village in plague-time, with our saint's relics in their jeweled casket, and trade prayers and candles to the Virgin for her help in abolishing the pest.

And he was always on hand at the bridge-head on the 9th of December, at the Assuaging of the Devil. Ours was a beautiful and massive stone bridge of five arches, and was seven hundred years old. It was built by the Devil in a single night. The prior of the monastery hired him to do it, and had trouble to persuade him, for the Devil said he had built bridges for priests all over Europe, and had always got cheated out of his wages; and this was the last time he would trust a Christian if he got cheated now. Always before, when he built a bridge, he was to have for his pay the first passenger that crossed it—everybody knowing he meant a Christian, of course. But no matter, he didn't say it, so they always sent a jackass or a chicken or some other undamnable passenger across

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first, and so got the best of him. This time he said Christian, and wrote it in the bond himself, so there couldn't be any misunderstanding. And that isn't tradition, it is history, for I have seen that bond myself, many a time; it is always brought out on Assuaging Day, and goes to the bridge-head with the procession; and anybody who pays ten groschen can see it and get remission of thirty-three sins besides, times being easier for every one then than they are now, and sins much cheaper; so much cheaper that all except the very poorest could afford them. Those were good days, but they are gone and will not come any more, so every one says.

Yes, he put it in the bond, and the prior said he didn't want the bridge built yet, but would soon appoint a day—perhaps in about a week. There was an old monk wavering along between life and death, and the prior told the watchers to keep a sharp eye out and let him know as soon as they saw that the monk was actually dying. Towards midnight the 9th of December the watchers brought him word, and he summoned the Devil and the bridge was begun. All the rest of the night the prior and the Brotherhood sat up and prayed that the dying one might be given strength to rise up and walk across the bridge at dawn—strength enough, but not too much. The prayer was heard, and it made great excitement in heaven; insomuch that all the heavenly host got up before dawn and came down to see; and there they were, clouds and clouds of angels filling all the air above the bridge; and the dying monk tottered across, and just had strength to get over; then he fell dead just as the Devil was reaching for him, and as his soul escaped the angels swooped down and caught it and flew up to heaven with it, laughing and jeering, and Satan found he hadn't anything but a useless carcase.

He was very angry, and charged the prior with cheating him, and said “this isn't a Christian,” but the prior said “Yes it is, it's a dead one.” Then the prior and all the monks went through with a great lot of mock ceremonies, pretending it was to assuage the Devil and reconcile him, but really it was only to make fun of him and stir up his bile more than ever. So at last he gave them all a solid good cursing, they laughing at him all the time. Then he raised a black

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storm of thunder and lightning and wind and flew away in it; and as he went the spike on the end of his tail caught on a capstone and tore it away; and there it always lay, throughout the centuries, as proof of what he had done. I have seen it myself, a thousand times. Such things speak louder than written records; for written records can lie, unless they are set down by a priest. The mock Assuaging is repeated every 9th of December, to this day, in memory of that holy thought of the prior's which rescued an imperiled Christian soul from the odious Enemy of mankind.

There have been better priests, in some ways, than Father Adolf, for he had his failings, but there was never one in our commune who was held in more solemn and awful respect. This was because he had absolutely no fear of the Devil. He was the only Christian I have ever known of whom that could be truly said. People stood in deep dread of him, on that account; for they thought there must be something supernatural about him, else he could not be so bold and so confident. All men speak in bitter disapproval of the Devil, but they do it reverently, not flippantly; but Father Adolf's way was very different; he called him by every vile and putrid name he could lay his tongue to, and it made every one shudder that heard him; and often he would even speak of him scornfully and scoffingly; then the people crossed themselves and went quickly out of his presence, fearing that something fearful might happen; and this was natural, for after all is said and done Satan is a sacred character, being mentioned in the Bible, and it cannot be proper to utter lightly the sacred names, lest heaven itself should resent it.

Father Adolf had actually met Satan face to face, more than once, and defied him. This was known to be so. Father Adolf said it himself. He never made any secret of it, but spoke it right out. And that he was speaking true, there was proof, in at least one instance; for on that occasion he quarreled with the Enemy, and intrepidly threw his bottle at him, and there, upon the wall of his study was the ruddy splotch where it struck and broke.

The priest that we all loved best and were sorriest for, was Father Peter. But the Bishop suspended him for talking around in conversation that God was all goodness and would find a way to save all

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his poor human children. It was a horrible thing to say, but there was never any absolute proof that Father Peter said it; and it was out of character for him to say it, too, for he was always good and gentle and truthful, and a good Catholic, and always teaching in the pulpit just what the Church required, and nothing else. But there it was, you see: he wasn't charged with saying it in the pulpit, where all the congregation could hear and testify, but only outside, in talk; and it is easy for enemies to manufacture that. Father Peter denied it; but no matter, Father Adolf wanted his place, and he told the Bishop, and swore to it, that he overheard Father Peter say it; heard Father Peter say it to his niece, when Father Adolf was behind the door listening—for he was suspicious of Father Peter's soundness, he said, and the interests of religion required that he be watched.

The niece, Gretchen, denied it, and implored the Bishop to believe her and spare her old uncle from poverty and disgrace; but Father Adolf had been poisoning the Bishop against the old man a long time privately, and he wouldn't listen; for he had a deep admiration of Father Adolf's bravery toward the Devil, and an awe of him on account of his having met the Devil face to face; and so he was a slave to Father Adolf's influence. He suspended Father Peter, indefinitely, though he wouldn't go so far as to excommunicate him on the evidence of only one witness; and now Father Peter had been out a couple of years, and Father Adolf had his flock.

Those had been hard years for the old priest and Gretchen. They had been favorites, but of course that changed when they came under the shadow of the Bishop's frown. Many of their friends fell away entirely, and the rest became cool and distant. Gretchen was a lovely girl of eighteen, when the trouble came, and she had the best head in the village, and the most in it. She taught the harp, and earned all her clothes and pocket money by her own industry. But her scholars fell off one by one, now; she was forgotten when there were dances and parties among the youth of the village; the young fellows stopped coming to the house, all except Wilhelm Meidling —and he could have been spared; she and her uncle were sad and forlorn in their neglect and disgrace, and the sunshine was gone out

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of their lives. Matters went worse and worse, all through the two years. Clothes were wearing out, bread was harder and harder to get. And now at last, the very end was come. Solomon Isaacs had lent all the money he was willing to put on the house, and gave notice that to-morrow he should foreclose.

I had been familiar with that village life, but now for as much as a year I had been out of it, and was busy learning a trade. I was more curiously than pleasantly situated. I have spoken of Castle Rosenfeld; I have also mentioned a precipiceⒶ which overlooked the river. Well, along this precipice stretched the towered and battlemented mass of a similar castle—prodigious, vine-clad,Ⓐ stately and beautiful, but mouldering to ruin. The great line that had possessed it and made it their chief home during four or five centuries was extinct, and no scion of it had lived in it now for a hundred years. It was a stanchⒶ old pile, and the greater part of it was still habitable. Inside, the ravages of time and neglect were less evident than they wereⒶ outside. As a rule the spacious chambers and the vast corridors, ballroomsⒶ, banqueting halls and rooms of state were bare and melancholy and cobwebbed, it is true, but the walls and floors were in tolerable condition, and they could have been lived in. In some of the rooms the decayed andⒶ ancient furniture still remained, but if the empty ones were pathetic to the view,Ⓐ these were sadder still.

This oldⒶ castle was not wholly destitute of life. By grace of the Prince over the river,Ⓐ who owned it, my master, with his little household, had for many years beenⒶ occupying a small portion of it, near the centre of the mass. The castle could have housed a thousand persons; consequently, as you may say, this handful was lost in it, likeⒶ a swallow's nest in a cliff.Ⓐ

My master was a printer. HisⒶ was a new art, being only thirty or forty years old, and almost unknown in Austria. Very few persons

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in our secluded region had ever seen a printed page, few had any very clear idea about the art of printing, and perhaps still fewerⒶ had any curiosity concerning it or felt any interest in it. Yet we had to conduct our business with some degree of privacy, on account of the Church. The Church was opposed to the cheapening of books and the indiscriminate dissemination of knowledge. Our villagers did not trouble themselves aboutⒶ our work, and had no commerce in it; we published nothing there, and printed nothing that they could have read, they being ignorant of abstruse sciencesⒶ and the dead languages.

We were a mixed family. My master, Heinrich Stein,Ⓐ was portly, and of a grave and dignified carriage, with a large and benevolent face and calmⒶ deep eyes—a patient man whose temper could stand much before it broke. His head was bald, with a valance of silky white hair hangingⒶ around it, his face was clean shaven, his raiment was good and fine, but not rich. He was a scholar, and a dreamer or a thinker, and loved learning and study, and would have submerged his mindⒶ all the days and nights in his books and been pleasantly and peacefully unconscious of his surroundings, if God had been willing. His complexion was younger than his hair; he was four or five years short ofⒶ sixty.Ⓐ

A large part of his surroundings consisted of his wife. She was well along in life, and was long and lean and flat-breasted, and had an active andⒶ vicious tongue and a diligent and devilish spirit, and more religion than was good for her, considering the quality of it. She hungered for money, and believed there was a treasure hid in the black deeps of the castle somewhere; and between fretting and sweating about that and trying to bring sinners nearer to God when any fell in her way she was able to fill up her time and save her life from getting uninteresting and her soul from getting mouldy. There was old tradition for the treasure, and the word ofⒶ BalthasarⒶ Hoffman thereto. He had come from a long way off, and had brought a great reputation with him, which he concealed in our family the best he could, for he had no more ambition to be burnt by the Church than another. He lived with us on light salary and board, and worked the constellations for the treasure. He had an

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easy berth and was not likely to lose his job if the constellations held out, for it was Frau Stein that hired him; and her faith in him, as in all things she had at heart, was of the staying kind. Inside the walls, where was safety, he clothed himself as Egyptians and magicians should, and moved stately, robed in black velvet starred and mooned and cometed and sun'dⒶ with the symbols of his trade done in silver, and on his head a conical tower with like symbols glinting from it. When he at intervals went outside he left his business suit behind, with good discretion, and went dressed like anybody else and looking the Christian with such cunning art that St. Peter would have let him in quite as a matter of course, and probably asked him to take something. Very naturally we were all afraid of him—abjectly so, I suppose I may say—though Ernest Wasserman professed that he wasn't. Not that he did it publicly; no, he didn't; for, with all his talk, Ernest Wasserman had a judgment in choosing the right placeⒶ for it that never forsook him. He wasn't even afraid of ghosts, if you let him tell it; and not only that but didn't believe in them. That is to say, he said he didn't believe in them. The truth is, he would say any foolish thing that he thought would make him conspicuous.

To return to Frau Stein. This masterly devil was the master's second wife, and before that she had been the widow Vogel. She had brought into the family a young thing by her first marriage, and this girl was now seventeen and a blister, so to speak; for she wasⒶ a second edition of her mother—just plain galley-proof, neither revised nor corrected, full of turned letters, wrong fonts, outs and doubles, as we say in the printing-shop—in a word, pi, if you want to put it remorselessly strong and yet not strain the facts. Yet ifⒶ it ever would be fair to strain facts it would be fair in her case, for she was not loath to strain them herself when so minded. Moses Haas said that whenever she took up an en-quad fact, just watch her and you would see her try to cram it in where there wasn't breathing-room for a 4-m space; and she'd do it, too, if she had to take the sheep-foot to it. Isn't it neat! Doesn't it describe it to a dot? Well, he could say such things, Moses couldⒶ—as malicious a devil as we had on the place, but as bright as a lightning-bug and as sudden, when

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he was in the humor. He had a talent for getting himself hated, and always had it out at usury. That daughter kept the name she was born to—Maria Vogel; it was her mother's preference and her own. Both were proud of it,Ⓐ without any reason, except reasons which they invented, themselves, from time to time, as a market offered. Some of the Vogels may have been distinguished, by not gettingⒶ hanged, Moses thought, but no one attached much importance to what the mother and daughter claimed for them. Maria had plenty of energy and vivacity and tongue, and was shapely enough but not pretty, barring her eyes, which had all kinds of fire in them, according to the mood of the moment—opal-fire, fox-fire, hell-fireⒶ, and the rest.Ⓐ She hadn't any fear, broadly speaking. Perhaps she had none at all, except for Satan, and ghosts, and witches and the priest and the magician, and a sort of fear of God in the dark, and of the lightning when she had been blaspheming and hadn't time to get in avesⒶ enough to square up and cash-in.Ⓐ She despised Marget Regen,ⒶⒶ the master's niece, along with Marget's mother, Frau RegenⒶ, who was the master's sister and a dependent and bedridden widow. She loved Gustav Fischer, the big and blonde and handsome and good-hearted journeyman, and detestedⒶ the rest of the tribe impartially, I think. Gustav did not reciprocate.

Marget RegenⒶ was Maria's age—seventeen. She was litheⒶ and graceful and trim-built as a fish, and she was a blue-eyed blonde, and soft and sweet and innocent andⒶ shrinking and winningⒶ and gentle and beautiful; just a vision for the eyes, worshipful, adorable, enchanting; but that wasn't the hive for her. She was a kitten in a menagerie.

She was a second edition of what her mother had been at her age; but struck from the standing forms and needing no revising, as one says in the printing-shop.Ⓐ That poor meek mother!Ⓐ yonder she had lain, partially paralysed, ever since her brother my master had brought her eagerlyⒶ there a dear and lovely young widow with her little child fifteen years before; the pair had been welcome, and had forgotten their poverty and poor-relation estate andⒶ been happy during three whole years. Then came the new wife with her five-year brat, and a change began. The new wife was never able to

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root out the master's love for his sister, nor to drive sister and child from under the roof, but she accomplished the rest: as soon as she had gotten her lord properly trained to harness, she shortened his visits to his sister and made them infrequent. But she made up for this by going frequently herself and roasting the widow, as the saying is.Ⓐ

Next was old Katrina. She was cook and housekeeper; her forbears had served the master's people and none else for three or four generations; she was sixty, and had served the master all his life, from the time when she was a little girl and he was a swaddled baby. She was erect, straight, six feet high, with the port and stride of a soldierⒶ; she was independent and masterful, and her fears were limited to the supernatural. She believed she could whip anybody on the place, and would have considered an invitation a favor. As far as her allegiance stretchedⒶ, she paid it with affection and reverence, but it did not extend beyond “her family”—the master, his sister, and Marget. She regarded Frau Vogel and MariaⒶ as aliens and intruders, and was frank about saying so.

She had under her two strapping young wenches—Sara and Duffles (a nickname), and a manservant, Jacob, and a porter, Fritz.Ⓐ

Next, we have the printing force.

Adam Binks, sixty years old, learnèd bachelor, proof-reader, poor, disappointed, surly.

Hans KatzenyammerⒶⒶ, 36, printer, huge, strong, freckled, red-headed, rough. When drunk, quarrelsome. Drunk when opportunity offered.

Moses Haas, 28, printer; a looker-out for himself; liable to say acid things about people and to people; take him all around, not a pleasant character.

Barty Langbein, 15; cripple; general-utility lad; sunny spirit; affectionate; could play the fiddle.

Ernest Wasserman, 17, apprentice; braggart, malicious, hateful, coward, liar, cruel, underhanded, treacherous. He and Moses had a sort of half fondness for each other, which was natural, they having one or more traits in common, down among the lower grades of traits.

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Gustav Fischer, 27, printer; large,Ⓐ well built, shapely and muscular; quiet, brave, kindly, a good disposition, just and fair; a slow temper to ignite, but a reliable burner when well going. He was about as much out of place as was Marget. He was the best man of them all, and deserved to be in better company.

Last of all comes August Feldner, 16Ⓐ, 'prentice. This is myself.Ⓐ

Of several conveniences there was no lack; among them, fire-wood and room. There was no end of room, we had it to waste. Big or little chambers for all—suit yourself, and change when you liked. For a kitchen we used a spacious room which was high up over the massive and frowning gateway of the castle and looked down the woody steeps and southward over the receding plain.

It opened into a great room with the same outlook, and this we used as dining room, drinking room, quarreling room—in a word, family room. Above its vast fire-place, which was flanked with fluted columns, rose the wide granite mantel, heavily carved, to the high ceiling. With a cart-load of logs blazing here within and a snow-tempest howling and whirling outside, it was a heaven of a place for comfort and contentment and cosiness, and the exchange of injurious personalities. Especially after supper, with the lamps going and the day's work done. It was not the tribe's custom to hurry to bed.

The apartments occupied by the Steins were beyond this room to the east, on the same front; those occupied by Frau RegenⒶ and MargetⒶ were on the same front also, but to the west, beyond the kitchen. The rooms of the rest of the herd were on the same floor, but on the other side ofⒶ the principal great interior court—away over in the north front, which rose high in air above precipice and river.

The printing-shop was remote, and hidden in an upper section of a round tower. Visitors were not wanted there; and if they had tried

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to hunt their way to it without a guide they would have concluded to give it up and call another time before they got through.

One cold day, when the noon meal was about finished, a most forlorn looking youth,Ⓐ apparently sixteen or seventeenⒶ years old,Ⓐ appeared in the door, and stopped there, timid and humble, venturing no further. His clothes were coarse and old, ragged, and lightly powderedⒶ with snow, and for shoes he had nothing but some old serge remnants wrapped about his feet and ancles and tied with strings. The war of talk stopped at once and all eyes were turned upon the apparition; those of the master, and Marget, and Gustav Fischer, and Barty Langbein, in pity and kindness, those of Frau Stein and the rest in varying shades of contempt and hostility.

“What do you want here?” said the Frau, sharply.

The youth seemed to wince under that. He did not raise his head, but with eyes still bent upon the floor and shylyⒶ fumbling his ruin of a cap which he had removed from his head, answered meekly—

“I am friendless, gracious lady, and am so—so hungry!”

“So hungry, are you?”—mimicking him. “Who invited you? How did you get in? Take yourself out of this!”

She half rose, as if minded to help him out with her hands. Marget started to rise at the same moment, with her plate in her hands and an appeal on her lips: “May I, madam?”

“No! Sit down!” commanded the Frau.Ⓐ The master, his face all pity, had opened his lips—no doubt to say the kind word—but he closed them now, discouraged. Old Katrina emerged from the kitchen, and stood towering in the door. She took in the situation, and just as the boy was turning sorrowfullyⒶ away, she hailed him:

“Come back, child, there's room in my kitchen, and plenty to eat, too!”

“Shut your mouth you hussy, and mind your own affairs and keep to your own place!” screamed the Frau, rising and turning toward Katrina, who, seeing that the boy was afraid to move, was coming to fetch him. Katrina, answering no word,Ⓐ came striding on. “Command her, Heinrich Stein! will you allow your own wife to be defied by a servant?”

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The master said “It isn't the first time,” and did not seem ungratified.

Katrina came on, undisturbed; she swung unheeding past her mistress, took the boy by the hand, and led him back to her fortress, saying, as she crossed its threshold,

“If any of you wants this boy, you come and get him, that's all!”

Apparently no one wanted him at that expense, so no one followed. The talk opened up briskly, straightway. Frau Stein wanted the boy turned out as soon as might be; she was willing he should be fed, if he was so hungry as he had said he was, which was probably a lie, for he had the look of a liar, she said,Ⓐ but shelter he could have none, for in her opinion heⒶ had the look of a murderer and a thief; and she asked Maria if it wasn't so. Maria confirmed it, and then the Frau asked for the general table's judgment. Opinions came freely: negatives from the master and from Marget and Fischer,Ⓐ affirmatives from the rest; and then warⒶ broke out. Presently, as one could easily see, the master was beginning to lose patience. He was likely to assert himself when that sign appeared. He suddenly broke in upon the wrangle, and said,

“Stop! This is a great to-do about nothing. The boy is not necessarily bad because he is unfortunate. And if he is bad, what of it? A bad person can be as hungry as a good one, and hunger is always respectable. And so is weariness. The boy is worn and tired, any one can see it. If he wants rest and shelter, that is no crime; let him say it and have it, be he bad or good—there's room enough.”

That settled it. Frau Stein was opening her mouth to try and unsettle it again when Katrina brought the boy in and stood him before the master and said, encouragingly,

“Don't be afraid, the master's a just man. Master, he's a plenty good enough boy, for all he looks such a singed cat. He's out of luck, there's nothing else the matter with him. Look at his face, look at his eye. He's not a beggar for love of it. He wants work.”

“Work!” scoffed Frau Stein; “that tramp?” And “work!” sneered this and that and the other one. But the master looked interested, and not unpleased. He said,

“Work, is it? What kind of work are you willing to do, lad?”Ⓐ

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“He's willing to do any kindⒶ, sir,” interrupted Katrina, eagerly, “and he don't want any pay.”

“What, no pay?”

“No sir, nothing but food to eat and shelter for his head, poor lad.”

“Not even clothes?”

“He shan't go naked, sir, if you'll keep him, my wage is bail for that.”

There was an affectionate lightⒶ in the boy's eye as he glanced gratefully up at his majestic new friend—a light which the master noted.Ⓐ

“Do you think you could do rough work—Ⓐrough, hard drudgery?”

“Yes, sir, I could, if you will try me; I am strong.”

“Carry fire-logs up these long stairways?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And scrub, like the maids; and build fires in the rooms; and carry up water to the chambers; and split wood; and help in the laundry and the kitchen; and take care of the dog?”

“Yes, sir, all those things, if you will let me try.”

“All for food and shelter? Well, I don't see how a body is going to refu—”

“Heinrich Stein, wait! IfⒶ you think you are going to nest this vermin in this place without ever so much as a by-your-leave to me, I can tell you you are very much mis—”

“Be quiet!” said the husband, sternly. “Now, then, you have all expressed your opinions about this boy, but there is one vote which you have not counted. I value that one above some of the others—above any of the others, in fact. On that vote by itself I would give him a trial. That is my decision. You can discuss some other subject, now—this one is finished. Take him along, Katrina, and give him a room and let him get some rest.”

Katrina stiffened with pride and satisfaction in her triumph. The boy's eyes looked his gratitude, and he said,

“I would like to go to work now, if I may, sir.”

Before an answer could come, Frau Stein interrupted:

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“I want to know. Whose vote was it that wasn't counted? I'm not hard of hearing, and I don't know of any.”

“The dog's.”

Everybody showed surprise. But there it was: the dog hadn't made a motion when the boy came in. Nobody but the master had noticed it, but it was the fact. It was the first time that that demon had ever treated a stranger with civil indifference. He was chained in the corner, and had a bone between his paws and was gnawing it; and not even growling, which was not his usual way. Frau Stein's eyes beamed with a vicious pleasure, and she called out,

“You want work, do you? Well, there it is, cut out for you. Take the dog out and give him an airing!”

Even some of the hardest hearts there felt the cruelty of it, and their horror showed in their faces when the boy stepped innocently forward to obey.

“Stop!” shouted the master, and Katrina, flushing with anger, sprang after the youth and halted him.

“Shame!” she said; and the master turned his indignation loose and gave his wife a dressing down that astonished her. Then he said to the stranger,

“You are free to rest, lad, if you like, but if you would rather work,Ⓐ Katrina will see what she can find for you. What is your name?”

The boy answered, quietly,

“Number 44, New SeriesⒶ 864,962.”Ⓔ

Everybody's eyes came open in a stare. Of course. The master thought perhaps he hadn't heard aright; so he asked again, and the boy answered the same as before,

“Number 44, New Series 864,962Ⓐ.”

“What a hell of a name!” ejaculated Hans KatzenyammerⒶ, piously.

“Jail-number, likely,” suggested Moses Haas,Ⓐ searchingly examining the boy with his rat eyes, and unconsciouslyⒶ twistingⒶ and stroking his silky and scanty moustacheⒶ with his fingers, a way he had when his cogitations were concentrated upon a thing.

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“It's a strange name,” said the master, with a barely noticeable touch of suspicion in his tone, “where did you get it?”

“I don't know, sir,” said No. 44, tranquilly, “I've always had it.”

The master forboreⒶ to pursue the matter further, probably fearing that the ice was thin, but Maria Vogel chirped up and asked,

“Have you ever been in jail?”

The master burst in with—

“There, that's enough of that! You needn't answer, my boy, unless you want to.” He paused—hopeful, maybe—but 44 did not seizeⒶ the opportunity to testify for himself. He stood still and said nothing. Satirical smiles flitted here and there, down the table, and the master looked annoyed and disappointed, though he tried to conceal it. “Take him along, Katrina.” He said it as kindly as he could, but there was just a trifle of a chill in his manner, and it delighted those creatures.

Katrina marched out with 44.

Out of a wise respect for the temper the master was in, there was no outspoken comment, but a low buzz skimmed along down the table, whose burden was, “That silence was a confession—the chap's a Jail-BirdⒶ.”

It was a bad start for 44. Everybody recognized it. Marget was troubled, and asked Gustav Fischer if he believed the boy was what these people were calling him. Fischer replied, with regret in his tone,

“Well, you know, Fräulein, he could have denied it, and he didn't do it.”

“Yes, I know, but think what a good face he has. And pure, too; and beautiful.”

“True, quite true. And it's astonishing. But there it is, you see—he didn't deny it. In fact he didn't even seem greatly interested in the matter.”

“I know it. It is unaccountable.Ⓐ What do you make out of it?”

“The fact thatⒶ he didn't see the gravity of the situation marks him for a fool. But it isn't the face of a fool. That he could be silent at such a time is constructive evidence that he is a Jail-BirdⒶ—with

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that face! which is impossible. I can't solve you that riddle, Fräulein —it's beyond my depth.”

Forty-FourⒶ entered, straining underⒶ a heavy load of logs, which he dumped into a great locker and went briskly out again. He was quickly back with a similar load; and another, and still another.

“There,” said the master, rising and starting away, “that will do; you are not required to kill yourself.”

“One more—just one more,” said the boy, as if asking a favor.

“Very well, but let that be the last,”Ⓐ said the master, as if granting one; and he left the room.

Forty-FourⒶⒶ brought the final load, then stood, apparently waiting for orders. None coming, he asked for them. It was Frau Stein's chance. She gave him a joyfully malicious glance out of her yellow eyes, and snapped out—

“Take the dog for an airing!”

Outraged, friend and foe alike rose at her! They surged forward to save the boy, but they were too late; he was already on his kneesⒶ loosing the chain, his face and the dog's almost in contact. AndⒶ nowⒶ the people surged back to save themselves; but the boy rose and went, with the chain in his hand, and the dog trotted after him happy and content.

Did it make a stir? Oh, on your life! For nearly two minutes the herd were speechless; and if I may judge by myself, they quaked, and felt pale;Ⓐ then they all broke out at once, and discussed it with animation and most of themⒶ said what an astonishing thing it was—and unbelievable, too, if they hadn't seen it with their own eyes. With Marget and Fischer and Barty the note was admiration. With Frau Stein, Maria, KatzenyammerⒶ and Binks it was wonder, butⒶ wonder mixed with maledictions—maledictions upon the devil that possessed the Jail-Bird—they averring that no stranger unprotected by a familiar spirit could touch that dog and come away but

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in fragments; and so, in their opinion the house was in a much more serious plight, now, than it was before when it only had a thief in it. Then there were three silent ones: Ernest and Moses indicated by their cynical manner and mocking smiles that they had but a small opinion of the exploit, it wasn't a matter to make such a fuss about; the other silent one—the magician—Ⓐwas so massively silent, so weightily silent, that it presently attracted attention. Then a light began to dawn upon some of theⒶ tribe; they turned reverent and marveling eyes upon the great man, and Maria Vogel said with the happy exultation of a discoverer—

“There he stands, and let him deny it if he can! He put power upon that boy with his magic. I just suspected it, and now I know it! Ah, you are caught, you can't escape—own up, you wonder of the ages!”

The magician smiled a simpering smile, a detected and convicted smile, and several cried out—

“There, he is caught—he's trying to deny it, and he can't! Come, be fair, be good, confess!” and Frau Stein and Maria took hold of his great sleeves, peering worshipingly up in his face and tried to detain him; but he gently disengaged himself and fled from the room, apparently vastlyⒶ embarrassed. So that settled the matter. It was such a manifest confession that not a doubter was left, every individual was convinced; and the praises that that man got would have gone far to satisfy a god. He was great before, he was held in awe before, but that was as nothing to the towering repute to which he had soared now. Frau Stein was in the clouds. She said that this was the most astonishing exhibition of magic power Europe had ever seen, and that the person who could doubt, after this, that he could work any miracle he wanted to would justly take rank as a fool. They all agreed that that was so, none denying it or doubting; and Frau Stein, taking her departure with the other ladies,Ⓐ declared that hereafter the magician should occupy her end of the table and she would move to a humbler place at his right, where she belonged.

All this was gall and vinegar to that jealous reptile Ernest Wasserman, who could not endure to hear anybody praised, and he

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began to cast about to turn the subject. Just then Fischer opened the way by remarking upon the Jail-Bird's strength, as shown in the wood-carrying. He said he judged that the Jail-Bird would be an ugly customer in a rough stand-up fight with a youth of his own age.

“Him!” scoffed Ernest, “I'm of his age, and I'll betⒶ I'dⒶ make him sorry if he was to tackle me!”

This was Moses's chance. He said, with mock solicitude,

“Don't. Think of your mother. Don't make trouble with him, he might hurt you badly.”

“Never you mind worrying about me, Moses Haas. Let him look out for himself if he meddles with me, that's all.”

“Oh,” said Moses, apparently relieved, “I was afraid you were going to meddle with him. I see he is not in any danger.” After a pause, “Nor you,” he added carelessly.

The taunt had the intended effect.

“Do you think I'm afraid to meddle with him? I'm not afraid of fifty of him. I'll show him!”

Forty-FourⒶ entered with the dog, and while he was chaining him Ernest began to edge toward the door.

“Oh,” simpered Moses, “good-bye, ta-ta, I thought you were going to meddle with the Jail-BirdⒶ.”

“What, to-day—and him all tired out and not at his best? I'd be ashamed of myself.”

“Haw-haw-haw!” guffawed that lumbering ox, Hans KatzenyammerⒶ, “hear the noble-hearted poltroon!”Ⓐ

A whirlwind of derisive laughter and sarcastic remarks followed, and Ernest, stung to the quick, threw discretion to the winds and marched upon the Jail-Bird, and plantedⒶ himself in front of him, crying out,

“Square off! Stand up like a man, and defend yourself.”

“Defend myself?” said the boy, seeming not to understand. “From what?”

“From me—do you hear?”

“From you? I have not injured you; why should you wish to hurt me?”

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The spectators were disgusted—and disappointed. Ernest's courage came up with a bound. He said fiercely,

“Haven't you any sense? Don't you know anything? You've got to fight me—do you understand that?”

“But I cannot fight you; I have nothing against you.”

Ernest, mocking: “Afraid of hurting me, I suppose.”

The Jail-Bird answered quite simply,

“No, there is no danger of that. I have nothing to hurt you for, and I shall not hurt you.”

“Oh, thanks—how kind. Take that!”

But the blow did not arrive. The stranger caught both of Ernest's wristsⒶ and held them fast. Our apprentice tugged and struggled and perspired and swore, while the menⒶ stood around in a ring and laughed, and shouted, and made fun of Ernest and called him all sorts of outrageous pet names; and still the stranger held him in that grip, and did it quite easily and without puffing or blowing, whereas Ernest was gasping like a fish; and at last, when he was worn out and couldn't struggle any more, he snarled out,

“I give in—let go!” and 44 let go and said gently, “if you will let me I will stroke your arms for you and get the stiffness and the pain out;” but Ernest said “You go to hell,” and went grumbling away and shaking his head and saying what he would do to the Jail-Bird one of these days, he needn't think it's over yet, he'd better look out or he'll find he's been fooling with the wrong customer; and so flourished out of the place and left the men jeering and yelling, and the Jail-Bird standing there looking as if it was all a puzzle to him and he couldn't make it out.

Things were against that poor waif.Ⓐ HeⒶ had maintained silence when he had had an opportunity to deny that he was a Jail-Bird, and that was bad for him. It got him that name, and he was likely to keep it. The men considered him a milksop because he spared

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Ernest Wasserman when it was evident that he could have whipped him. Privately my heart bled for the boy, and I wanted to be his friend, and longed to tell him so, but I had not the courage, for I was made as most people are made, and was afraid to follow my own instincts when they ran counter to other people's. The best of us would rather be popular than right. I found that out a good while ago. Katrina remained the boy's fearless friend, but she was alone in this. The master used him kindly, and protected him when he saw him ill treated, but further than this it was not in his nature to go except when he was roused, the current being so strong against him.

As to the clothes, Katrina kept her word. SheⒶ sat up late, that very first night, and made him a coarse and cheap, but neat and serviceable doublet and hoseⒶ with her own old hands; and she properly shod him, too. And she had her reward, for he was a graceful and beautiful creature, with the most wonderful eyes, and these facts all showed up, now, and filled her with pride. Daily he grew in her favor. Her old hungry heart was fed,Ⓐ she was a mother at last,Ⓐ with a child to love,—a child who returned her love in fullⒶ measure, and to whom she was the salt of the earth.Ⓐ

As the days went along, everybody talked about 44, everybody observed him, everybody puzzled over him and his ways; but it was not discoverable that he ever concerned himself in the least degree about this or was in any way interested in what people thought of him or said about him. This indifference irritated the herd, but the boy did not seem aware of it.

The most ingenious and promising attempts to ruffle his temper and break up his calm went for nothing. Things flung at him struck him on the head or the back, and fell at his feet unnoticed; now and then a leg was shoved out and he tripped over it and went heavily down amid delighted laughter, but he picked himself up and went on without remark; often when he had brought a couple of twenty-pound cans of water up two long flights of stairs from the well in the court, they were seizeⒶd and theirⒶ winter-cold contents poured over him, but he went back unmurmuring for more; more than once, when the master was not present, Frau Stein made him share

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the dog's dinner in the corner, but he was content and offered no protest. The most of these persecutions were devised by Moses and KatzenyammerⒶ, but as a rule were carried out by that shabby poor coward, Ernest.

You see, now, how I was situated. I should have been despised if I had befriendedⒶ him; and I should have been treated as he was, too. It is not everybody that can be as brave as Katrina was. More than once she caught Moses devising those tricks and Ernest carrying them out, and gave both ofⒶ them an awful hiding; and once when Hans KatzenyammerⒶ interfered she beat that big ruffian till he went on his knees and begged.

What a devil to work the boy was! The earliest person up found him at it by lantern-light, the latest person up found him still at it long past midnight. It was the heaviest manual labor, but if he was ever tired it was not perceptible. He always moved with energy, and seemed to find a high joy in putting forth his strange and enduring strength.Ⓐ

He made reputation for the magician right along; no matter what unusual thing he did, the magician got the credit of it; at first the magician was cautious, when accused,Ⓐ and contented himself with silences which rather confessed than denied the soft impeachment, but he soon felt safe to throw that policy aside and frankly take the credit, and he did it. One day 44 unchained the dog and said “Now behave yourself, Felix, and don't hurt any one,” and turned him loose, to the consternationⒶ of the herd, but the magician sweetly smiled and said,

“Do not fear. It is a little caprice of mine. My spirit is upon him, he cannot hurt you.”

They were filled with adoring wonder and admiration, those people. They kissed the hem of the magician's robe, and beamed unutterableⒶ things upon him. Then the boy said to the dog,

“Go and thank your master for this great favor which he has granted you.”

Well,Ⓐ it was an astonishing thing that happened, then. That ignorant and malignant vast animal, which had never been taught language or manners or religion or any other valuable thing, and

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could not be expected to understand a dandyⒶ speech like that,Ⓐ went and stood straight up on its hind feet before the magician, with its nose on a level with his face, and curved its paws and ducked its head piously, and said

“Yap-yap!—yap-yap!—yap-yap!” most reverently, and just as a Christian might at prayers.

Then it got down on all fours, and the boy said,Ⓐ

“Salute the master, and retire as from the presence of royalty.”

The dog bowed very solemnly, then backed away stern-firstⒶ to his corner—not with grace it is true, but well enough for a dog that hadn't had any practice of that kind and had never heard of royalty before nor its customs and etiquettes.

Did that episode take those people's breath away? You will not doubt it. They actually went on their knees to the magician, Frau Stein leading, the rest following. I know, for I was there and saw it. I was amazed at such degraded idolatry and hypocrisy—at least servility—but I knelt, too, to avert remark.

Life was become very interesting. Every few days there was a fresh novelty, some strange new thing done by the boy, something to wonder at; and so the magician's reputation was augmenting all the time. To be envied is the secret longingⒶ of pretty much all human beings—let us say all;Ⓐ to be envied makes them happy. The magician was happy, for never was a man so envied; he lived in the clouds.

I passionately longed to know 44, now. The truth is, he was being envied himself!Ⓐ Spite of all his shames and insults and persecutions. For, there is no denying it, it was an enviable conspicuousness and glory to be the instrument of such a dreaded and extraordinary magician as thatⒶ and have people staring at you and holding their breath with awe while you did the miracles he devised. It is not for me to deny that I was one ofⒶ 44's enviers. If I hadn't been, I should have been no natural boy. But I was a natural boy, and I longed to be conspicuous, and wondered at and talked about. Of course the case was the same with Ernest and Barty, though they did as I did—concealed it. I was always throwing myself in the magician's way whenever I could, in the hope that he

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would do miracles through me, too, but I could not get his attention. He never seemed to see me when he was preparing a prodigy.

At last I thought of a plan that I hoped might work. I would seek 44Ⓐ privately and tell him how I was feelingⒶ and see if he would help me attain my desire. So I hunted up his room, and slipped up there clandestinely one night after the herd were in bed, and waited. After midnight an hour or two he came, and when the light of his lantern fell upon me he set it quickly down, and took me by both of my hands and beamedⒶ his gladness from hisⒶ eyes, and there was no need to say a word.

He closed the door, and we sat down and began to talk, and he said it was good and generous of me to come and see him, and he hoped I would be his friend, for he was lonely and so wanted companionship. His words made me ashamed—so ashamed, and I felt so shabby and mean, that I almost had courage enough to come out and tell him how ignoble my errand was and how selfish. He smiled most kindly and winningly, and put out his hand and patted me on the knee, and said,

“Don't mind it.”

I did not know what he was referring to, but the remark puzzled me, and so, in order not to let on, I thought I would throw out an observation—anything that came into my head; but nothing came but the weather, so I was dumb. He said,

“Do you care for it?”

“Care for what?”

“The weather.”

I was puzzled again; in fact astonished; and said to myself “This is uncanny; I'm afraid of him.”

He said cheerfully,

“Oh, you needn't be. Don't you be uneasy on my account.”

I got up trembling, and said,

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“I—I am not feeling well, and if you don't mind, I think I will excuse myself, and—”

“Oh, don't,” he said, appealingly, “don't go. Stay with me a little. Let me do something to relieve you—I shall be so glad.”

“You are so kind, so good,” I said, “and I wish I could stay, but I will come another time. I—well, I—you see, it is cold, and I seem to have caught a little chill, and I think it will soon pass if I go down and cover up warm in bed—”

“Oh, a hot drink is a hundred times better, a hundred times!—that is what you really want. Now isn't it so?”

“Why yes; but in the circumstances—”

“Name it!” he said, all eager to help me. “Mulled claret, blazing hot—isn't that it?”

“Yes, indeed; but as we haven't any way to—”

“Here—take it as hot as you can bear it. You'll soon be all right.”

He was holding a tumbler to me—fine, heavy cut-glass, and the steam was rising from it. I took it, and dropped into my chair again, for I was faint with fright, and the glass trembled in my hand.Ⓐ I drank. It was delicious; yes, and a surprise to my ignorant palate.

“Drink!” he said. “Go on—drain it. It will set you right, never fear. But this is unsociable; I'll drink with you.”

A smoking glass was in hisⒶ hand; I was not quick enough to see where it came from. Before my glass was empty he gave me a full one in its place and said heartily,

“Go right on, it will do you good. You areⒶ feeling better already, now aren't you?”

“Better?” said I to myself; “as to temperature, yes, but I'm scared to rags.”

He laughed a pleasant little laugh and said,

“Oh, I give you my word there's no occasion for that. You couldn't be safer in my good old Mother Katrina's protection. Come, drink another.”

I couldn't resist; it was nectar.Ⓐ I indulged myself. But I was miserably frightened andⒶ uneasy, and I couldn't stay;Ⓐ I didn't know what might happen next. So I said I must go. He wanted me to sleep in his bed, and said he didn't need it, he should be going to

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work pretty soon; but I shuddered at the idea, and got out of it by saying I should rest better in my own, because I was accustomed to it. So then he stepped outside the door with me, earnestly thanking me over and over again for coming to see him, and generously forbearing to notice how pale I was and how I was quaking; and he made me promise to come again the next night, I saying to myself that I should break that promise if I died for it. Then he said good-bye, with a most cordial shake of the hand, and I stepped feebly intoⒶ the black gloom—and found myself in my own bed, with my door closed, my candle blinking on the table, and a welcome great fire flaming up the throat of the chimney!

It made me gasp! But no matter, I presentlyⒶ sank deliciously off to sleep, with that noble wine weltering in my head, and my last expiring effort at cerebrationⒶ hit me with a cold shock:

“Did he overhearⒶ that thought when it passed through my mind —when I said I would break that promise if I died for it?”

To my astonishment I got up thoroughly refreshed when called at sunrise. There was not a suggestion of wine or its effects in my head.

“ItⒶ was all a dream,” I said, gratefully.Ⓐ “I can get along without the mate to it.”

By and by, on a stairway I met 44 coming up with a great load of wood, and he said, beseechingly,

“You will come again to-night, won't you?”

“Lord! I thought it was a dream,” I said, startled.

“Oh, no, it was not a dream. I should be sorry, for it was a pleasant night for me, and I was so grateful.”Ⓐ

There was something so pathetic in his way of saying it that a great pity rose up in me and I said impulsively,

“I'll come if I die for it!”

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He looked as pleased as a child, and said,

“It's the same phrase, but I like it better this time.” Then he said, with delicate consideration for me, “Treat me just as usual when others are around; it would injure you to befriend me in public, and I shall understand and not feel hurt.”

“You are just lovely!” I said, “and I honor you, and would brave them all if I had been born with any spirit—which I wasn't.”

He opened his big wondering eyes upon me and said,

“Why do you reproach yourself? You did not make yourself; how then are you to blame?”

HowⒶ perfectly sane and sensible that was—yet I had never thought of it before, nor had ever heard even the wisest of the professionally wise people say it—nor anything half so intelligent and unassailable, for that matter. It seemed an odd thing to get it from a boy, and he a vagabond landstreicher at that. At this juncture a proposition framed itself in my head, but I suppressed it, judging that there could be no impropriety in my acting upon it without permission if I chose. HeⒶ gave me a bright glance and said,

“Ah, you couldn't if you tried!”

“Couldn't what?”

“Tell what happened last night.”

“Couldn't I?”

“No. Because I don't wish it. What I don't wish, doesn't happen. I'm going to tell you various secrets by and by, one of these days.Ⓐ You'll keep them.”

“I'm sure I'll try to.”

“Oh, tell them if you think you can!Ⓐ Mind, I don't say you shan't, I only say you can't.”

“Well, then, I shan't try.”

Then Ernest came whistling gaily along, and when he saw 44 he cried out,

“Come, hump yourself with that wood, you lazy beggar!”

I opened my mouth to call him the hardest name in my stock, but nothing would come. I said to myself, jokingly, “Maybe it's because 44 disapproves.”

Forty-FourⒶ looked back at meⒶ over his shoulder and said,

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“Yes, that is it.”

TheseⒶ things were dreadfully uncanny, but interesting. I went musing away, saying to myself, “he mustⒶ have read my thoughts when I was minded to ask him if I might tell what happened last night.”Ⓐ He called back from far up the stairs,

“I did!”

[ ] Ⓐ

Breakfast was nearingⒶ a finish. The master had been silent all through it. ThereⒶ was something on his mind; all could see it. When he looked like that, it meant that he was putting the sections of an important and perhaps risky resolution together, and bracing up to pull it off and stand by it. Conversation had died out; everybody was curious, everybody was waiting for the outcome.

Forty-FourⒶ was putting a log on the fire. The master called him. The general curiosity rose higher still, now. The boy came and stood respectfully before the master, who said,

“Forty-Four, I have noticed—Forty-Four is correct, I believe?—”

The boy inclined his head and added gravely,

“New Series 864,962.”

“We will not go into that,” said the master with delicacy, “that is your affair and I conceive that into it charity forbids us to pry. I have noticed, as I was saying, that you are diligent and willing, and have borne a hard lot these several weeksⒶ with exemplary patience. There is much to your credit, nothing to your discredit.”

The boy bentⒶ his head respectfully, the master glanced down the table, noted the displeasure along the line, then went on.

“You have earned friends, and it is not your fault that you haven't them. You haven't one in the castle, except Katrina. It is not fair. I am going to be your friend myself.”

The boy's eyes glowed with happiness, Maria and her mother tossed their heads and sniffed, but there was no other applause. The master continued.

“You deserve promotion, and you shall have it. Here and now I raise you to the honorable rank of apprenticeⒺ to the printer's art, which is the noblest and the most puissant of all arts, and destined in the ages to come to promoteⒶ the others and preserve them.”

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And he rose and solemnly laid his hand upon the lad's shoulder like a king delivering the accolade. Every man jumped to his feet excited and affrontedⒶ, to protest against this outrage, this admission of a pauper and tramp without name or family toⒶ the gate leading to the proudⒶ privileges and distinctions and immunities of their great order; but the master's temper was up, and he said he would turn adrift any man that opened his mouth; and he commanded them to sit down, and they obeyed, grumbling, and pretty nearly strangled with wrath. Then the master sat down himself, and began to question the new dignitary.

“This is one of the learned professions. Have you studied the Latin, Forty-Four?”

“No, sir.”

Everybody laughed, but not aloud.

“The Greek?”

“No, sir.”

Another clandestine laugh; and this same attention greeted all the answers, one after the other. But the boy did not blush, nor look confused or embarrassed; on the contrary he looked provokingly contented and happy and innocent. I was ashamed of him, and felt for him; and that showed me that I was liking him very deeply.

“The Hebrew?”Ⓐ

“No, sir.”

“Any of the sciences?—the mathematics? astrology? astronomy? chemistry? medicine? geography?”

As each in turn was mentioned, the youth shook his untroubled head and answered “No, sir,” and at the end said,

“None of them, sir.”

The amusement of the herd was almost irrepressible by this time; and on his side the master's annoyance had risen very nearly to the bursting point. He put in a moment or two crowdingⒶ it down, then asked,

“Have you ever studied anything?”

“No, sir,” replied the boy, as innocently and idiotically as ever.

The master's project stood defeated all along the line! It was a critical moment. Everybody's mouth flew open to let go a trium-

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phantⒶ shout; but the master, choking with rage,Ⓐ rose to the emergency,Ⓐ and it was his voice that gotⒶ the innings:

“By the splendor of God I'll teach you myself!”

It was just grand! But it was a mistake. It was all I could do to keep from raising a hurrah for the generous old chief. But I held in. From the apprentices' table in the corner I could see every face, and I knew the master had made a mistake. I knew those men. They could stand a good deal, but the master had played the limit, as the saying is, and I knew it. He had struck at their order, the appleⒶ of their eye, their pride, the darling of their hearts, their dearest possession, their nobility—as they ranked it and regarded it—and had degraded it. They would not forgive that.Ⓐ They would seek revenge, and find it. This thing that we had witnessed, and which hadⒶ had the form and aspect of a comedy, was a tragedy. It was a turning point. There would be consequences. In ordinary casesⒶ where there was matter for contention and dispute, there had always beenⒶ chatter and noise and jaw, and a general row; but now the faces were black and ugly, and not a word was said. It was an omen.Ⓐ

We three humble ones sat at our small table staring; and thinking thoughts. Barty looked pale and sick. Ernest searched my face with his evil eyes, and said,

“I caught you talking with the Jail-BirdⒶ on the stairs. You needn't try to lie out of it, I saw you.”

All the blood seemed to sink out of my veins, and a cold terror crept through me. In my heart I cursed the luck that had brought upon me that exposure. What should I do? What could I do? What could I say in my defence? I could think of nothing; I had no words, I was dumb—and that creature's merciless eyes still boring into me. He said,

“Say—you are that animal'sⒶ friend. Now deny it if you can.”Ⓐ

I was in a bad scrape. He would tell the men, and I shouldⒶ be an outcast, and they would make my life a misery to me. I was afraid enough of the men, and wished there was a way out, but I saw there was none, and that if I did not want toⒶ complete my disaster I must pluck up some heart and not let this brute put me under his

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feet. I wasn't afraid of him, at any rate; even myⒶ timidity had its limitations. So I pulled myself together and said,

“It's a lie. I did talk with him, and I'll do it again if I want to, but that's no proof that I'm his friend.”

“Oho, so you don't deny it! That's enough. I wouldn't be in your shoes for a good deal. When the men find it out you'll catch it, I can tell you that.”

That distressed Barty, and he begged Ernest not to tell on me, and tried his best to persuade him; but it was of no use. He said he would tell if he died for it.

“Well, then,” I said, “go ahead and do it; it's just like your sort, anyway. Who cares?”

“Oh, you don't care, don't you? Well, we'll see if you won't. And I'll tell them you're his friend, too.”

If that should happen! The terror of it roused me up, and I said,

“Take that back, or I'll stick this dirkⒶ into you!”

He was badly scared, but pretended he wasn't, and laughed a sickly laugh and said he was only funning. That ended the discussion, for just then the master rose to go, and we had to rise, too, and look to our etiquette. I was sufficiently depressed and unhappy, for I knew there was sorrow in store for me. Still, there was one comfort: I should not be charged with being poor 44's friend, I hoped and believed; so matters were not quite soⒶ calamitous for me as they might have been.Ⓐ

[ ] Ⓐ

We filedⒶ up to the printing rooms in the usual order of precedence, I following after the last man, Ernest following after me, and Barty after him. Then came 44.

Forty-Four would have to do his studying after hours. During hours he would now fill Barty's former place and put in a good deal of his time in drudgery and dirty work; and snatchⒶ such chances as he could, in the intervals, to learn the first steps of the divine art—composition, distribution and the like.

Certain ceremonies were Forty-Four's due whenⒶ as an accredited apprentice he crossed the printing-shop's threshold for the first time. He should have been invested with a dagger, for he was now

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privileged to bear minorⒶ arms—foretaste and reminder of the future still prouder day when as a journeyman he would take the rank of a gentleman and be entitled to wear a sword. And a red chevron should have been placed upon his left sleeve to certify to the world his honorable new dignity of printer's apprentice.Ⓐ These courtesiesⒶ were denied him, andⒶ omitted. He entered unaccosted and unwelcomed.

The youngest apprentice should now have taken him in charge and begun to instruct him in the rudimentary duties of his position. Honest little Barty was commencingⒶ this service, but KatzenyammerⒶ the foreman stopped him, and said roughly,

“Get to your case!”

So 44 was left standing alone in the middle of the place. He looked about him wistfully, mutely appealing to all faces but mine, but no one noticed him, no one glanced in his direction, or seemed aware that he was there. In the corner old Binks was bowed over a proof-slip; KatzenyammerⒶ was bendingⒶ over the imposing-stone making up a form; Ernest, with ink-ball and coarse brush was proving a galley; I was overrunningⒶ a page of Haas's to correct an out; Fischer, with paste-pot and brown linen, was new-covering the tympan; Moses was setting type, pulling down his guide for every line, weaving right and left, bobbing over his case with every type he picked up, fetching the box-partition a wipe with it asⒶ he broughtⒶ it away, making two false motions before he put it in the stickⒶ and a third one with a click on his rule, justifying like a rail fence, spacing like an old witch's teeth—hair-spaces and m-quads turn about—Ⓐjust a living allegory of falseness and pretence from his green silk eye-shade down to his lifting and sinkingⒶ heels, making show and bustleⒶ enough for 3,000 an hour, yet never good for 600 on a fat take and double-leaded at that. It was inscrutable that God would endure a compⒶ like that, and lightning so cheap.

It was pitiful to see that friendless boy standing there forlorn in that hostile stillness. I did wish somebody would relent and say a kind word and tell him something to do. But it could not happen; they were all waiting to see trouble come to him, all expecting it, all tremulously alert for it, all knowing it was preparing for him, and

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wondering whence it would come, and in what form, and who would invent the occasion. Presently they knew. KatzenyammerⒶ had placedⒶ his pages, separated them with reglets, removed the strings from around them, arranged his bearers; the chase was on, the sheep-foot was in his hand, he was ready to lock up. He slowly turned his head and fixed an inquiring scowl upon the boy. He stood so, several seconds, then he stormed out,

“Well, are you going to fetch me some quoins, or not?”

Cruel! How could he know what the strangeⒶ wordⒶ meant? He begged for the needed information with his eloquent eyes—the men were watching and exulting—KatzenyammerⒶ began to move toward him with his big hand spread for cuffing—ah, my God, IⒶ mustn't venture to speak, was there no way to save him? Then I had a lightning thought; would he gather it from my brain?—“Forty-FourⒶ, that's the quoin-box, under the stone table!”

In an instant he had it out and on the imposing-stone! He was saved. KatzenyammerⒶ and everybody looked amazed. And deeply disappointed.

For a while KatzenyammerⒶ seemed to be puzzling over it and trying to understand it; then he turned slowly to his work and selected some quoins and drove them home. The form was ready. He set that inquiring gaze upon the boy again. Forty-Four was watching with all his eyes, but it wasn't any use; how was he to guess what was wanted of him?Ⓐ KatzenyammerⒶ's face began to work, and he spat dry a couple of times, spitefully; then he shouted,

“Am I to do it—or who?”

I was ready this time. I said to myself, “Forty-Four, raise it carefully on its edge, get it under your right arm, carry it to that machine yonder, whichⒶ is the press, and lay it gently down flat on that stone, which is called the bed of the press.”

He went tranquilly to work, and did the whole thing as right as nails—did it like an old hand! It was just astonishing. There wasn't another untaught and unpractised person in all Europe who could have carried that great and delicate feat half-way through without piing the form. I was so carried away that I wanted to shout. But I held in.

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Of course the thing happened, now,Ⓐ that was to be expected. The men took Forty-Four for an old apprentice, a refugee flying from a hard master. They could not ask him, as to that, custom prohibiting it; but they could ask him other questions which could be awkward. They could be depended upon to do that. The men all left their work and gathered around him, and their ugly looks promised trouble. They looked him over silently—arranging their game, no doubt—he standing in the midst, waiting, with his eyes cast down. I was dreadfully sorry for him. I knew what was coming, and I saw no possibility of his getting out of the hole he was in. The very first question would be unanswerable, and quite out of range of help from me. Presently that sneering Moses Haas asked it:

“So you are an experienced apprentice to this art, and yet don't know the Latin!”

There it was! I knew it. But—oh, well, the boy was just an ever-fresh and competent mystery! He raised his innocent eyes and placidly replied,

“Who—I? Why yes, I know it.”

They gazed at him puzzled—stupefied, as you might say. Then KatzenyammerⒶ said,

“Then what did you tell the master that lie for?”

“I? I didn't know I told him a lie; I didn't mean to.”

“Didn't mean to? Idiot!Ⓐ he asked you if you knew the Latin, and you said no.”

“Oh, no,” said the youth, earnestly, “it was quite different. He asked me if I had studied it—meaning in a school or with a teacher, as I judged. Of course I said no, for I had only picked it up—from books—by myself.”

“Well, upon my soul, you are a purist, when it comes to cast-iron exactness of statement,” said KatzenyammerⒶ, exasperated. “Nobody knows how to take you or what to make of you; every time a person puts his finger on you you're not there. Can't you do anything but the unexpected? If you belonged to me, damned if I wouldn't drown you.”

“Look here, my boy,” said Fischer, not unkindly, “do you know

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—as required—the rudiments ofⒶ all those things the master asked you about?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Picked them up?”

“Yes, sir.”

I wished he hadn't made that confession. Moses saw a chance straightway:

“Honest people don't get into this profession on picked-up culture; they don't get in on odds and ends, they have to know the initial stages of the sciences and things. YouⒶ sneaked in without an examination, but you'll pass one now, or out you go.”

It was a lucky idea, and they all applauded. I felt more comfortable, now, for if he could take the answers from my head I could send him through safe. Adam Binks was appointed inquisitor, but I soon saw that 44 had no use for me. He was away up. I would have shown off if I had been in his placeⒶ and equipped as he was. But he didn't. In knowledge Binks was a child to him—that was soon apparent. He wasn't competent to examine 44; 44 took him out of his depth on every language andⒶ art and science, and if erudition had been water he would have been drowned. The men had to laugh, they couldn't help it; and if they had been manly men they would have softened toward their prey, but they weren't and theyⒶ didn't. Their laughter made Binks ridiculous, and he lost his temper; but instead of venting it on the laughers he let drive at the boy, the shameless creature, and would have felled him if Fischer hadn't caught his arm. Fischer got no thanks for that, and the men would have resented his interference, only it was not quite safe and they didn't want to drive him from their clique, anyway. They could see that he was at best only lukewarm on their side, and they didn't want to cool his temperature any more.

The examination-scheme was a bad failure—a regular collapse, in fact,—and the men hated the boy for being the cause of it, whereas they had brought it upon themselves. That is just like human beings. The foreman spoke up sharply, now, and told them to get to work; and said that if they fooled away any more of the

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shop's time he would dock them. Then he ordered 44 to stop idling around and get about his business. No one watched 44 now; they all thought he knew his duties, and where to begin. ButⒶ itⒶ was plain to me that he didn't; so I prompted him out of my mind, and couldn't keep my attention on my work, it was so interesting and so wonderful to see him perform.

Under my unspoken instructions he picked up all the good type and broken type from about the men's feet and put the one sort in the pi pile and the other in the hell-box; turpentined the inking-balls and cleaned them; started up the lyeⒶ-hopper; washed a form in the sink, and did it well; removed last week's stiff black towel from the roller and put a cleanⒶ one in its place; made paste; dusted out several cases with a bellows; made glue for the bindery; oiled the platen-springs and the countersunk rails of the press; put on a paper apron and inked the form while KatzenyammerⒶ worked off a token of signature 16 of a Latin Bible, and came out of the job as black as a chimney-sweep from hair to heels; set up pi; struck galley-proofs; tied up dead matter like an artist, and set it away on the standing galley without an accident; brought the quads when the men jeff'd for takes, and restored them whence they came when the lucky comps were done chuckling over their fat and the others done damning their lean; and would have gone innocently to the village saddler's after strap-oil and got itⒶ—on his rear—if it had occurred to the men to start him on the errand—a thing they didn't think of, they supposing he knew that sell by memorable experience; and so they lost the best chance they had in the whole day to expose him as an impostor who had never seen a printing-outfit before.

A marvelous creature; and he went through without a breakⒶ; but by consequence of my having to watch over him so persistently I set a proof that had the smallpox, and the foreman made me distribute his case for him after hours as a “lesson” to me. He was not a stingy man with that kind of tuition.Ⓐ

I had saved 44, unsuspected and without damage or danger to myself, and it made me lean toward him more than ever. That was natural.

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Then, when the day was finished, and the men were washing up and I was feeling good and fine and proud, Ernest Wasserman came out and told on me!

I slipped out and fled. It was wise, for in this way I escaped the first heat of their passion, or I should have gotten not merely insults but kicks and cuffs added. I hid deep down and far away, in an unvisited part of the castle among a maze of dark passages and corridors. Of courseⒶ I had no thought of keeping my promise to visit 44; but in the circumstances he would not expect it—I knew that. I had to lose my supper, and that was hard lines for a growing lad. And I was like to freeze, too, in that damp and frosty place. Of sleep little was to be had, because of the cold and the rats and the ghosts. Not that I saw any ghosts, but I was expecting them all the time, and quite naturally, too, for that historic old ruin was lousy with them, so to speak, for it had had a tough career through all the centuries of its youth and manhood—a career filled with romance and sodden with crime—Ⓐand it is my experience that between the misery of watchingⒶ and listening for ghosts and the fright of seeing them there is not much choice. In truth I was not sorry sleep was chary, for I did not wish to sleep. I was in trouble, and more was preparing for me, and I wanted to pray for help, for therein lay my best hope and my surest. I had moments of sleep now and then, being a young creature and full of warm blood, but in the long intervals I prayed persistently and fervently and sincerely. But I knew I needed more powerful prayers than my own—prayers of the pureⒶ and the holy—prayers of the consecrated—prayers certain to be heard, whereas mine might not be. I wanted the prayers of the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration. They could be had for 50 silver groschen. In time of threatened and imminentⒶ trouble, trouble which promised to be continuous, one valued their championship far above that of any priest, for his prayers would ascend at regu-

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larly appointed times only, with nothing to protect you in the exposed intervals between, but theirs were perpetual—hence their name—there were no intervals, night or day: when two of the Sisters rose from before the altar two others knelt at once in their place and the supplications went on unbroken. Their convent was on the other side of the river, beyond the village, but Katrina would get the money to them for me. They would take special pains for any of us in the castle, too, for our Prince had been doing them a valuable favor lately, to appease God on account of a murder he had done on an elder brother of his, a great Prince in Bohemia and head of the house. He had repaired andⒶ renovated and sumptuously fitted up the ancient chapel of our castle, to be used by them while their convent, which had been struck by lightning again and much damaged,Ⓐ was undergoing reparations. They would be coming over for Sunday, and the usual service would be greatly augmented, in fact doubled: the Sacred Host would be exposed in the monstrance, and four Sisters instead of twoⒶ would hold the hours of adoration; yet if you sent your 50 groschen in time you would be entitled to the advantage of this, which is getting in on the ground floor, as the saying is.Ⓐ

Our Prince not only did for them what I have mentioned, but was paying for one-third ofⒶ those repairs on their convent besides. Hence we were in great favor. That dear and honestⒶ old Father Peter would conduct the service for them. Father Adolf was not willingⒶ, for there was no money in it for the priest, the money all going to the support of a little house of homeless orphans whom the goodⒶ Sisters took care of.

At last the ratsⒶ stopped scampering over me, and I knew the long night was about at an end; so I groped my way out of my refuge. When I reached Katrina's kitchen she was at work by candle-light, and when she heard my tale she was full of pity for me and maledictions for Ernest, and promised him a piece of her mind, with foot-notes and illustrations; and she bustled around and hurried upⒶ a hot breakfast for me, and sat down and talked and gossiped, and enjoyed my voracity, as a good cook naturally would, and indeed I was fairly famished. And it was good to hear her rageⒶ

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at those rascals for persecuting her boy, and scoff at them for that they couldn't produce one individual manly enough to stand up for him and the master. And she burst out and said she wished to God DoangivadamⒶ was here, and I just jumped up and flung my arms around her old neckⒶ and hugged her for the thought! Then she went gentlyⒶ down on her knees before the little shrine ofⒶ the Blessed Virgin, I doing the same of course, and she prayed for helpⒶ for us all out of her fervent and faithful heart, and rose up refreshed and strengthened and gave our enemies as red-hot andⒶ competent a damning as ever came by natural gift from uncultured lips in my experience.

The dawn was breaking, now, and I told her my project concerning the Sisters of the Perpetual Adoration, and she praised me and blest me for my piety and right-heartedness, and said she would send the money for me and have it arranged. I had to ask would sheⒶ lend me two groschen, for my savings lacked that much of being fifty, and she said promptly—

“Will I? and you in this trouble for being good to my boy?Ⓐ That I will; and I'd do it if it was five you wanted!”

And the tears came in her eyes and she gave me a hug; then I hastedⒶ to my room and shut the door and locked it, and fished my hoard out of its hiding-placeⒶ and counted the coins, and there were fifty. I couldn't understand it. I counted them again—twice; but there was no error, there were two there that didn't belong. So I didn't have to go into debt, after all. I gave the money to Katrina and told her the marvel, and she counted it herself and was astonished, and couldn't understand it any more than I could. Then came sudden comprehension!Ⓐ and she sank downⒶ on her knees before the shrine and poured out her thanks to the Blessed Virgin for this swift andⒶ miraculous answer.

She rose up the proudest woman in all that region; and she was justifiedⒶ in feeling so. SheⒶ said—and tried to say it humbly—

“To think She would do it for me, a poor lowly servant, dust of the earth: There's crowned monarchs SheⒶ wouldn't do it for!” and her eyes blazed up in spite of her.

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It was all over the castle in an hour, and wheresoever she went, there they made reverence and gave her honor as she passed by.

It was a bad day that had dawned for 44 and me, this wretched Tuesday. The men were sour and ugly. They snarled at me whenever they could find so much as half an occasion, they sneered at me and made jokes about me; and when Katzenyammer wittily called me by an unprintable nameⒶ they shouted with laughter, and sawed their boxes with their composing-rules, which is a comp's way of expressing sarcastic applause. The laughter was praise of the foreman's wit, the sarcasm was for me. You must choose your man when you saw your box; not every man will put up with it. It is the most capable and eloquent expression of derision that human beings have ever invented. It is an urgent and strenuous and hideous sound, and when an expert makes it it shrieks out like the braying of a jackass. I have seen a comp draw his sword for that. As for that name the foreman gave me, it stung me and embittered me more than any of the other hurts and humiliations that were put upon me; and I was girl-boy enough to cry about it, which delighted the men beyond belief, and they rubbed their hands and shrieked with delight. Yet there was no point in that name when applied to a person of my shape,Ⓐ therefore it was entirely witless. It was the slangⒶ name (imported from England),Ⓐ used by printers to describe a certain kind of type. All types taper slightly, and are narrower at the letter than at the base of the shank; but in some fonts this spread is so pronounced that you can almost detect it with the eye, loose and exaggerative talkers asserting that it was exactly the taper of a leather bottle. Hence that odious name: and now they had fastened it upon me. If I knew anything about printers, it would stick. Within the hour they had added it to my slug! Think of that. Added it to my number, by initials, and there you could read it in the list above the take-file: “Slug 4, B.-A.” It may seem a small thing; but I can tell you that not all seemingly small things are small to a boy. That one shamed me as few things have done since.Ⓐ

The menⒶ were persistently hard on poor unmurmuring 44.

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Every time he had to turn his back and cross the room they rained quoins and 3-m quads after him, which struck his head and bounded off in a kind of fountain-shower. Whenever he was bending down at any kind of work that required that attitude, the nearest man would hit him a blistering whack on his southern elevation with the flat of a galley, and then apologise and say,

“Oh, was it you? I'm sorry; I thought it was the master.”

Then they would all shriek again.

And so on and so on. They insulted and afflicted him in every way they could think of—and did it far more for the master's sake than for his own. It was their purpose to provoke a retort out of 44Ⓐ, then they would thrash him. But they failed, and considered the day lost.

Wednesday they came loaded with new inventions, and expected to have better luck. They crept behind him and slipped cakes of ice down his back; they started a fire under the sink, and when he discovered it and ran to put it out they swarmed there in artificial excitement with buckets of water and emptied them on him instead of on the fire, and abused him for getting in the way and defeating their efforts; while he was inking for Katzenyammer, this creature continually tried to catch him on the head with the frisket before he could get out of the way, and at last fetched it down so prematurely that it failed to get home, but struck the bearers and got itself bent like a bow—and he got a cursing for it, as if it had been his fault.

They led him a dog's life all the forenoon—but they failed again. In the afternoon they gave him a Latin Bible-take that took him till evening to set up; and after he had proved it and was carrying away the galley, Moses tripped him and he fell sprawling, galley and all. The foreman raged and fumed over his clumsinessⒶ, putting all the blame on him and none on Moses, and finished with a peculiarly mean piece of cruelty: ordering him to come back after supper and set up the take again, by candle-light, if it took him all night.

This was a little too much for Fischer's stomach, and he began to remonstrate; but Katzenyammer told him to mind his own business;

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and the others moved up with threatenings in their eyes, and so Fischer had to stand down and close his mouth. He had occasion to be sorry he had tried to do the boy a kindness, for it gave the foreman an excuseⒶ to double-up the punishment. He turned on Fischer and said,

“You think you've got some influence here, don't you? I'll give you a little lesson that'll teach you that the best way for you to get this Jail-Bird into trouble is to come meddling around here trying to get him out of it.”

Then he told 44 he must set up the pi'd matterⒶ and distribute it before he began on the take!

An all-night job!—and that poor friendless creature hadn't done a thing to deserve it. Did the master know of these outrages? Yes, and was privately boiling over them; but he had to swallow his wrath, and not let on. The men had him in their power, and knew it. He was under heavy bonds to finish a formidable piece of work for the University of Prague—it was almost done,Ⓐ a few days more would finish it, to fall short of completion would meanⒶ ruin. He must see nothing, hear nothing, of these wickednesses: if his men should strike—and they only wanted an excuse and were playing for it—where would he get others? Venice? Frankfort? Paris? London? Why, these places were weeks away!

The men went to bed exultant that Wednesday night, and I sore-hearted.

But lord, how premature we were: the boy's little job was all right in the morning! Ah, he was the most astonishing creature!

Then the disasterⒶ fell: the men gave it up and struck! The poor master, when he heard the news, staggered to his bed, worn out with worry and wounded pride and despair, to toss thereⒶ in fever and delirium and gabble distressful incoherencies to his grievingⒶ nurses, Marget and Katrina. The men struck in the forenoon of ThursdayⒶ, and sent the master word. Then they discussed and discussed—trying to frame their grounds. Finally the document was ready, and they sent it to the master. He was in no condition to read it, and Marget laid it away. It was very simple and direct. It

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said that the Jail-Bird was a trial to them, and an unendurable aggravation; and that they would not go back to work again until he was sent away.

They knew the masterⒶ couldn't send the lad away. It would break his sword and degrade him from his guild, for he could prove no offence against the apprentice. If he did not send 44 away work wouldⒶ stand still, he would fail to complete his costly printing-contract and be ruined.Ⓐ

So the men were happy; the master was their meat, as they expressed it, no matter which move he made, and he had but the two.Ⓐ

It was a black and mournful time, that Friday morning that the works stood idle for the first time in their history. There was no hope. As usual the men went over to early mass in the village, like the rest of us, but they did not come back for breakfast—naturally. They came an hour later, and idled about and put in the dullⒶ timeⒶ the best they could, with dreary chat, and gossip, and prophecies, and cards. They were holding the fort, you see; a quite unnecessary service, since there was none to take it. It would not have been safe for any one to set a type there.

No, there was no hope. By and by Katrina was passing by a group of the strikers, when Moses, observing the sadness in her face, could not forbear a gibe:

“I wouldn't look so disconsolate, Katrina, prayer can pull off anything, you know. TossⒶ up a hint to your friend the Virgin.”

You would have thought, by the sudden and happy change in her aspect, that he had uttered something very much pleasanter than a coarse blasphemy. She retorted,

“ThankyⒶ, dog, for the idea. I'll do it!” and she picked up her feet and moved off briskly.

I followed her, for that remark had given me an idea, too. It was

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this: to cheer up, on our side, and stop despairing and get down to work—bring to our help every supernatural force that could be had for love or money: the Blessed Mother, Balthasar the magician, and the Sisters of the Perpetual Adoration. It was a splendid inspiration, and she was astonished at my smartness in thinking of it. She was electrified with hope and she praised me till I blushed; and indeed I was worthy of some praise, on another count: for I told her to withdraw my former “intention,” (you have to name your desire—called “intention”—when you apply to the P. A.,) Ⓐ and tell the Sisters not to pray for my relief, but leave me quite out and throw all their strength into praying that Doangivadam might come to the master's rescue—Ⓐan exhibition of self-sacrifice on my partⒶ which Katrina said was noble and beautiful and God would remember it and requite it to me; and indeed I had thought of that already, for it would be but right and customaryⒶ.

At my suggestion she said she would get 44 to implore his overlord the magician to exert his dread powers in the master's favor. So now our spirits had a great uplift; our clouds began to pass, and the sun to shine for us again. Nothing could be more judicious than the arrangement we had arrived at; by it we were pooling our stock, not scattering it; by it we had our money on three cards instead of one,Ⓐ and stood to win on one turn or another. Katrina said she would have all these great forces at work within the hour, and keep them at it without intermission until the winner's flag went up.

I went from Katrina's presence walking on air, as the saying is. Privately I was afraid we had one card that was doubtful—the magician. I was entirely certain that he could bring victory to our flag if he chose, but would he choose? He probably would if Maria and her mother asked him, but who was to ask them to ask him? Katrina? They would not want the master ruined, since that would be their own ruin; but they were in the dark, by persuasion of the strikers, who had made them believe that no one's ruin was really going to result except 44's. As for 44 having any influence with his mighty master, I did not take much stock in that; one might as well expect a poor lackey to have the ear and favorⒶ of a sovereign.

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I expected a good deal of Katrina's card, and as to my own I hadn't the least doubt. It would fetch Doangivadam, let him be where he might; of that I felt quite sure. What he might be able to accomplish when he arrived—well, that was another matter. One thing could be dependedⒶ upon, anyway—he would take the side of the under dog in the fight, be that dog in the right or in the wrong, and what man could do he would do—and up to the limit, too.

He was a wandering comp. Nobody knew his name, it had long ago sunk into oblivion under that nickname, which described him to a dot. Hamper him as you might, obstructⒶ him as you might, make things as desperate for him as you pleased, he didn't give a damn, and said so. He was always gay and breezy and cheerful, always kind and good and generous and friendly and careless and wasteful, and couldn't keep a copperⒶ, and never tried. But let his fortune be up or down you never could catch him other than handsomely dressed, for he was a dandy from the cradle, and a flirt. He was a beauty, trim and graceful as SatanⒶ, and was a born masher and knew it. He was not afraid of anything or anybody, and was a fighter by instinct and partiality. All printers were pretty good swordsmen, but he was a past master in the art, andⒶ as agile as a cat and as quick. He was very learned, and could have occupied with credit the sanctum sanctorum, as the den of a book-editor was called, in the irreverent slang of the profession. He had a baritone voice of great power and richness, he hadⒶ a scientific knowledge of music, was a capable player upon instruments, was possessed of a wide knowledge of the arts in general, and could swear in nine languages. He was a good son of the Church, faithful to his religious duties, and the most pleasant and companionable friend and comrade a person could have.

But you never could get him to stay in a place, he was always wandering, always drifting about Europe. If ever there was a perpetual sub, he was the one. He could have had a case anywhere for the asking, but if he had ever had oneⒶ, the fact had passed from the memory of man. He was sure to turn up with us several times a year, and the same in Frankfort, Venice, Paris, London, and so on, but he was as sure to flit again after a week or two or three—that is

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to say, as soon as he had earned enough to give the boys a rouseⒶ and have enough left over to carry him to the next front-stoop on his milk-route, as the saying is.

Here we were, standing still, and so much to do! So much to do, and so little time to do it in:Ⓐ it must be finished by next Monday; those commissioners from Prague would arrive then, and demand their two hundred Bibles—the sheets, that is, we were not to bind them. Half of our force had been drudging away on that great jobⒶ for eight months; 30,000 ems would finish the composition; but for our trouble,Ⓐ we could turn on our whole strength and doⒶ it in a day of 14 hours,Ⓐ then printⒶ the final couple of signaturesⒶ in a couple of hours moreⒶ and be far within contract-time—and here we were, idle, and ruin coming on!

All Friday and Saturday I stumped nervously back and forth between the Owl Tower and the kitchen—watching from the one, in hope of seeing DoangivadamⒶ come climbing up the winding road; seeking KatrinaⒶ in the other for consultation and news. But when night shut down, Saturday, nothing definite had happened, uncertainty was still our portion, and we did not know where we were at, as the saying is. The magician had treated 44 to an exceedingly prompt snub and closed out his usefulness as an ambassadorⒶ; then KatrinaⒶ had scared Maria and her mother into a realization of their danger and they had tried theirⒶ hands with Balthasar. He was very gracious, very sympathetic, quite willing to oblige, but pretty non-committal. He said that these printers were not the originators of this trouble,Ⓐ and were acting in opposition to their own volition; they were only unwitting tools—tools of three of the most malignant and powerful demons in hell, demons whom he named, and whom he had battled with once before, overcoming them, but at cost of his life almost. They were not conspiring against the master, that was only a blind—he, the magician, was the prey they were after, and he could not as yet foresee how the struggle would come out; but he was consulting the stars, and should do his best. He believed that three otherⒶ strong demons were in the conspiracy, and he was working spells to find out as to this; if it should turn out to be so, he should have to commandⒶ the

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presence and aid of the very Prince of Darkness himself! The result would necessarily be terrible, for many innocent persons would be frightened to death by his thunders and lightnings and his awful aspect;Ⓐ still, if the ladies desired it—

But the ladies didn't!Ⓐ nor any one else, for that matter. So there it stood. If the three extra fiendsⒶ didn't join the game, we might expect Balthasar to go in and win it and make everything comfortable again for the master; but if they joined, the game was blocked, of course, since no one was willing to have Lucifer go to the bat.Ⓐ It was a momentous uncertainty; there was nothing for it but to wait and see what those extras would elect to do.

Meantime Balthasar was doing his possible—we could see that. He was working his incantations right along, and sprinkling powders, and lizards, and newts, and human fat, and all sortsⒶ of puissant things into his caldronⒶ, and enveloping himself in clouds of smoke and raising a composite stink that made the castle next to unendurableⒶ, and could be smelt in heavenⒶ.

I clung to my hope, and stuck to the Owl Tower till night closed down and veiledⒶ the road and the valley in a silvery mist of moonlight,Ⓐ but DoangivadamⒶ did not come, and my heart was very heavy.

But in the morrow was promise; the service in our chapel would have double strength, because four SistersⒶ would be on dutyⒶ before the altar, whereas two was the custom.Ⓐ That thought lifted my hope again.

Apparently all times are meet for love, sad ones as well as bright and cheerful ones. Down on the castle roof I could see two couples doing overtime—Fischer and Marget, and Moses and Maria. I did not care for Maria, but if I had been older, and Fischer had wanted to put on a sub—but it was long ago, long ago, and such things do not interest me now. She was a beautiful girl, Marget.

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It was a lovely Sunday, calm and peaceful and holy,Ⓐ and bright with sunshine. It seemed strange that there could be jarrings and enmities in so beautiful a world. As the forenoon advancedⒶ the household began to appear, one after another, and all in their best; the women in their comeliest gowns, the men in velvetsⒶ and laces, with snug-fitting hose that gave the tendons and muscles of their legs a chance to show their quality. The master and his sister were brought to the chapel on couches,Ⓐ that they might have the benefit of the prayers—Ⓐhe pale and drowsing and not yet really at himself; then the rest of us (except 44 and the magician)Ⓐ followed and took our places. It was not a proper place for sorcerers and their tools. The villagers had come over, and the seats were full.Ⓐ

The chapel was fine and sumptuous in its new paint and gilding; and there was the organ, in full view,Ⓐ an invention of recent date, and hardly any in the congregation had ever seen one before. Presently it began to softly rumble and moanⒶ, and the people held their breath for wonder at the adorable sounds, and their faces were alight with ecstasy. And I—I had never heard anything so plaintive, so sweet, so charged with the deep and consoling spirit of religion. And oh, so dreamily it moanedⒶ, and wept, and sighed and sang, on and on, gently rising, gently falling, fading and fainting, retreating to dim distances and reviving and returning,Ⓐ healing our hurts, soothing our griefs, steeping us deeper and deeper in its unutterable peace—then suddenly it burst into breath-taking rich thundersⒶ of triumph and rejoicing, and the consecrated ones came filing in! You will believe that all worldly thoughts, all ungentle thoughts, were gone from that place, now; you will believe that these uplifted and yearning souls were as a garden thirsting for the fructifying dew of truth, and prepared to receive it and hold it precious and give it husbandry.

Father Peter's face seemed to deliver hope and blessing and grace upon us just by the benignity and love that was in it and beamingⒶ from it. It was good to look at him, that true man. He described to

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us the origin of the Perpetual Adoration, which was a seed planted in the heart of the Blessed Margaret Alacoque by Our Lord himself, what time he complained to her of the neglect of his worship by the people, after all he had done for men. And Father Peter said,

“The aim of the Perpetual Adoration is to give joy to Our Lord, and to make at least some compensation by its atonement for the ingratitude of mankind. It keeps guard day and night before the Most Holy, to render to the forgotten and unknown Eucharistic God acts of praise and thanksgiving, of adoration and reparation. It is not deterred by the summer's heat nor the winter's cold. It knows no rest, no ceasing, night or day. What a sublime vocation! After the sacerdotal dignity, one more sublime can hardly be imagined. A priestly virgin should the adorer be, who raises her spotless hands and pure heart in supplication toward heaven imploring mercy, who continually prays for the welfare of her fellow creatures, and in particular for those who have recommended themselves to her prayers.”

Father Peter spoke of the blessings both material and spiritual that would descend upon all who gave of their substance toward the repairing of the convent of the Sisters of the Adoration and its new chapel, and said,

“In our new chapel the Blessed Sacrament will be solemnly exposed for adoration during the greater part of the year. It is our hearts' desire to erect for Our LordⒶ and Savior a beautiful altar, to place Him on a magnificent throne, to surround Him with splendor and a sea of light; for,” continued he, “OurⒶ Lord said again to his servant Margaret Alacoque: 'I have a burning thirst to be honored by men, in the Blessed Sacrament—I wish to be treatedⒶ as king in a royal palace.' You have therefore HisⒶ own warrant and word: it is Our Lord's desire to dwell in a royal palace and to be treated as a king.”

Many among us, recognizing the reasonableness of this ambition, rose and went forward and contributed money, and I would have done likewise, and gladly, but I had already given all I possessed. Continuing, Father Peter said, referring to testimonies of the supernatural origin and manifold endorsements of the Adoration,Ⓐ

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“Miracles not contained in Holy Scripture are not articles of faith, and are only to be believed when proved by trustworthy witnesses.”

“But,” he added,Ⓐ “God permits such miracles from time to time, in order to strengthen our faith or to convert sinners.” Then most earnestlyⒶ he warned us to be on our guard against accepting miracles, or what seemed to be miracles, upon our own judgment and without the educated and penetrating help of a priest or a bishop. He said that an occurrenceⒶ could be extraordinary without necessarilyⒶ being miraculous; that indeed a true miracle was usually not merely extraordinary, it was also a thingⒶ likely to happen. Likely, for the reason that it happened in circumstances where it manifestly had a service to perform—circumstances which showed that it was not idly sent, but for a solemn and sufficient purpose. He illustrated this with several most interesting instances where both the likelihood of the events and their unusual nature were strikingly perceptible; and notⒶ to cultured perceptions alone perhaps, but possibly to even untrained intelligences. One of these he called “The miracle of Turin,” and this he told in these words:

“In the yearⒶ 1453 a church in Isiglo was robbed and among other things a preciousⒶ monstrance was stolen which still contained the Sacred Host. The monstrance was put in a large sack and a beast of burden carried the booty of the robbers. On the 6th of June the thieves were passing through the streets of Turin with their spoil, when suddenly the animal became furious and no matter how much it was beaten could not be forced from the spot. At once the cords with which the burden was fastened to the ass'sⒶ back broke, the sack opened of itself, the monstrance appeared, rose on high, and miraculously remained standing in the air to the astonishment of the many spectators. The news of this wonderful event was quickly spread through the city. Bishop Louis appeared with the chapter of his cathedral and the clergy of the city. But behold, a new prodigy! The Sacred Host leaves the case in which it was enclosed, the monstrance lowers itself to the ground, but the Sacred Host remains immovable and majestic in the air, shining like the sun and sending forth in all directions rays of dazzling splendor.

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The astonished multitude loudly expressed its joy and admiration, and prostrated itself weeping and adoring before the divine SaviorⒶ, who displayed His glory here in such a visible manner. The bishop too on his knees implored our Lord to descend into the chalice which he raised up to Him. Thereupon the Sacred Host slowly descended and was carried to the church of St. John amid the inexpressible exultation of the people. The city of Turin had a grand basilicaⒶ built on the spot where the miracle took place.”

He observed that here we had two unchallengeable testimonies to the genuineness of the miracle: that of the bishop, who would not deceive, and that of the assⒶ, who could not. Many in the congregationⒶ who had thitherto been able to restrain themselves, now went forward and contributed. Continuing, Father Peter said,

“But now let us hear how our dear Lord, in order to call His people to repentance, once showed something of His majesty in the city of Marseilles, in France. It was a.d. 1218Ⓐ that the Blessed Sacrament was exposed for adoration in the convent church of the Cordeliers for the forty hours devotion. Many devout persons were assisting at the divine service, when suddenly the sacramental speciesⒶ disappeared and the people beheld the King of GloryⒶ in person. His countenance shone with brightness, His look was at once severe and mild, so that no one could bear His gaze. The faithful were motionless with fear, for they soon comprehended what this augustⒶ apparition meant. Bishop Belsune had more than sixty persons witness to this fact, upon oath.”

Yet notwithstanding this the people continued in sin, and had to be again admonished. As Father Peter pointed out:

“At the same time it was revealed to two saintly persons that our Lord would soon visit the city with a terrible punishment if it would not be converted. After two years a pestilence really came and carried off a great part of the inhabitants.”

Father Peter told how, two centuries before, in France, Beelzebub and another devil had occupied a woman, and refused to come forth at the command of the bishop, but fled from her, blaspheming, when the Sacred Host was exposed, “this being witnessed by more than 150,000 persons;”Ⓐ he also told how a picture of the

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Sacred Host,Ⓐ being painted in the great window of a church that was habituallyⒶ being struck by lightning, protected it afterward; then he used that opportunity to explain that churches are not struck by lightning by accident, but for a worthy and intelligent purpose:

“Four times our chapel has been struck by lightning. Now some might ask: why did GodⒶ not turn away the lightning? God has in all things his most wise design, and we are not permitted to search into it. But certain it is, that if our chapel had not been visited in this way, we would not have called on the kindness and charity of the devout lovers of the Holy Eucharist. We would have remained hidden and would have been happy in our obscurity. Perhaps just this was His loving design.”Ⓐ

Some who had never contributed since the chapel was first struck,Ⓐ on account of not understanding the idea of it before,Ⓐ went forward cheerfully, now, and gave money; but others, like the brewer Hummel, ever hard-headed and without sentiment, said it was an extravagant way to advertise, and God the FatherⒶ would do well to leave such things to persons in the businessⒶ, practical persons who had had experience; so Hummel and his like gave nothing. Father Peter told one more miracle,Ⓐ and all were sorry it was the last, for we could have listened hours, with profitⒶ, to these moving and convincing wonders:Ⓐ

“On the afternoon of February 3d, 1322Ⓐ, the following incident took place in the Loretto Chapel at Bordeaux. The learned priest, Dr. Delort, professor of theology in Bordeaux, exposed the Blessed Sacrament for adoration. After the Pange lingua had been chanted the sacristan suddenly arises, taps the priest on the shoulder and says: ‘God appears in the Sacred Host.’Ⓐ Dr. Delort raises his eyes, looks at the Sacred Host and perceives the apparition. Thinking it might be a mere effect of the light he changes his position in order to be able to see better. He now sees that the Sacred Host had, so to say, separated into two parts, in order to make room in the middle for the form of a young man of wondrous beauty. The breast of Jesus projected beyond the circle of the monstrance, and He graciously moved His head whilst with His right hand He blessed the assembly.

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His left hand rested on His heart. The sacristan, several children, and many adults saw the apparition, which lasted during the entire time of the exposition. With superhuman strength the priest then took the monstrance—and constantly gazing at the divine countenance—he gave the final benediction. The commemoration of this apparition is celebrated every year in this convent.”

There was not a dry eye in the house.

At this moment the lightning struck the chapel once moreⒶ and emptied it in a moment, everybody fleeing from it in a frenzy of terror.

This was clearly another miracle, for there was not a cloud in the sky. Proof being afterward collected and avouched by Father Peter, it was accepted and consecrated at Rome, and our chapel became celebrated by reasonⒶ of it, and a resort for pilgrims.

To katrina and me the miracle meant that my card had turned up, and we were full of joy and confidence. Doangivadam was coming, we were sure of it. I hurried to the Owl Tower and resumed my watch.

But it was another disappointment. The day wasted away, hour by hour, the night closed down, the moon rose, and still he did not come. At elevenⒶ I gave it up and came down heavy-hearted and stiff with the cold. We could not understand it. We talked it over, we turned it this way and that, it was of no use, the thing was incomprehensible. At last Katrina had a thought that seemed to throw light, and she uttered it, saying,

“Sometimes such things are delayed, for a wise purpose, a purpose hidden from us, and which it is not meet for us to inquire into: to punish Marseilles and convert it, the cholera was promised, by a revelation—but it did not come for two years.”

“Ah, dear, that is it,” I said, “I see it now. He will come in two years, but then it will be too late. The poor master! nothing can

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save him, he is lost. Before sunset to-morrow the strikers will have triumphed, and he will be a ruined man. I will go to bed; I wish I might never wake again.”

[ ] Ⓐ

About nine the next morning, Doangivadam arrived! Ah, if he could only have come a few short days before! I was all girl-boy again, I couldn't keep the tears back. At his leisure he had strolled over from the village inn, and he marched in among us, gay and jovial,Ⓐ plumed and gorgeous, and took everybody by surprise. Here he was in the midst, scattering salutations all around. He chucked old Frau SteinⒶ under the chin and said,

“Beautiful as ever, symbol of perpetual youth!” And he called Katrina his heart's desire and snatched a kiss; and fell into rapturesⒶ over Maria, and said she was just dazzling and lit up the mouldy castle like the sun; then he came flourishing in where the men were at their early beer and their rascal plans, now at the threshold of success; and he started to burst out with some more cordialities there, but not a man rose nor gave him a look of welcome, for they knew him, and that as soon as he found out how things stood he would side with the under dog in the fight, from nature and habit. He glanced about him, and his face sobered. He backed against an unoccupied table, and half-sitting upon its edge, crossed his ancles, and continued his examination of the faces. Presently he said, gravely,

“There's something the matter, here; what is it?”

The men sat glum and ugly, and no one answered. He looked toward me, and said,

“Tell me about it, lad.”

I was proud of his notice, and it so lifted my poor courage that although I dreaded the men and was trembling inside, I actually openedⒶ my mouth to begin; but before I could say anything 44 interposed and said, meekly,

“If you please, sir, it would get him into trouble with the men, and he is not the cause of the difficulty, but only I. If I may be allowed to explain it—”

Everybody was astonished to see poor 44 making so hardy a

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venture, but Katzenyammer glanced at him contemptuously and cut him short:

“Shut your mouth, if you please, and look to it that you don't open it again.”

“Suppose I ask him to open it,” said Doangivadam; “what will you do about it?”

“Close it for him—that's what.”

A steely light began to play in Doangivadam's eyes, and he called 44 to his side and said,

“Stand there. I'll take care of you. Now go on.”

The men stirred in their chairs and straightened up, their faces hardening—a sort of suggestion of preparation, of clearing for action, so to speak. There was a moment's pause, then the boy said in a level and colorless voice, like one who is not aware of the weight of his words,

“I am the new apprentice. Out of unmerited disapproval of me, and for no otherⒶ or honorable reason, these cowardly men conspired to ruin the master.”

The astonished men, their indignant eyes fixed upon the boy, began slowly to rise; said Doangivadam,

“They did, did they?”

“Yes,” said the boy.

“The—sons of bitches!” and every sword was out of its sheath in an instant, and the men on their feet.

“Come on!” shouted Doangivadam, fetching his long rapier up with a whiz and falling into position.

But the men hesitated, wavered, gave back, and that was the friend of the under dog's opportunity—he was on them like a cat. They recoveredⒶ, and braced up for a moment, but they could not stand against the man's impetuous assault, and had to give way before it and fall back, one sword after another parting from their hands with a wrenchⒶ and flying, till only two of the enemyⒶ remained armed—Katzenyammer and Binks—then the champion slipped and fell, and they jumped for him to impale him, and I turned sick at the sight; but 44 sprang forward and gripped their necks with his small hands and they sank to the floor limp and gasping. Doangivadam was up and on guard in a moment, but the

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battle was over. The men formally surrendered—except the two that lay there. It was as much as ten minutes before they recovered; then they sat up, looking weak and dazed and uncertain, and maybe thinking the lightning had struck again; but the fight was all out of them and they did not need to surrender; they only felt of their necks and reflected.

We victors stood looking down upon them, the prisoners of war stood grouped apart and sullen.

“How was that done?” said Doangivadam, wondering; “what was it done with?”

“He did it with his hands,” I said.

“With his hands? Let me see them, lad . . . . Why, they are soft and plump—just a girl's.Ⓐ Come, there's no strength in these paddies; what is the secret of this thing?”

So I explained:

“It isn't his own strength, sir; his master gives it him by magic—Balthasar the enchanter.”

So then he understood it.

He noticedⒶ that the men had fallen apart and were picking up their swords, and he ordered 44 to take the swords away from them and bring them to him. And he chuckled at the thought of what the boy had done, and said,

“If they resist, try those persuadersⒶ of yours again.”Ⓐ

But they did notⒶ resist. When 44Ⓐ brought himⒶ the swords he piled them on the table and said,

“Boy, you were not in the conspiracy; with that talent of yours, why didn't you make a stand?”

“There was no one to back me, sir.”

“There's something in that. But I'm here, now. It's backing enough, isn't it? You'll enlist for the war?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That settles it. I'll be the right wing of the army, and you'll be the left. We will concentrate on the conspiracy here and now. What is your name?”

The boy replied with his customary simplicity,

“No. 44, New Series 864,962.”

Doangivadam, who was inserting the point of his rapier into its

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sheath, suspended the operation where it was, and after a moment asked,

“What did I understand you to say?”

“No. 44, New Series 864,962.”

“Is—is that your name?”

“Yes, sir.”

“My—word, but it's a daisy! In the hurry of going to press, let's dock it to Forty-Four and put the rest on the standing-galley and let it go for left-over at half rates. Will that do?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Come, now—range up, men, and plant yourselves! Forty-Four is going to resume his account of the conspiracy. Now go on, 44, and speak as frankly as you please.”Ⓐ

Forty-Four told the story, and was not interrupted. When it was finished Doangivadam was looking sober enough, for he recognized that the situationⒶ was of a seriousness beyond anything he had guessed—in fact it had a clearly hopeless look, so far as he could at the moment see. The men had the game in their hands; how could he, or any other,Ⓐ save the master from the ruin they had planned? That was his thought. The men read it in his face, and they looked the taunts which they judged it injudicious to put into words while their weapons were out of their reach. Doangivadam noted the looks and felt the sting of them as he sat trying to think out a course. He finished his thinkings, then spoke:

“The case stands like this. If the master dismissesⒶ 44—but he can't lawfully doⒶ it; that way out is blocked. If 44 remains, you refuse to work, and the master cannot fulfill his contract. That is ruin for him. You hold all the cards, that is evident.

Having conceded this, he began to reason upon the matter, and to plead for the master, the just master, the kind and blameless master, the generous master, now so sorely bestedⒶ, a master who had never wronged any one, a master who would be compassionate if he were in their place and they in his . . . . .Ⓐ

It was time to interrupt him, lest hisⒶ speech begin to produce effects, presently; and Katzenyammer did it.

“That's enough of that taffy—shut it off!” he said. “We stand solid; the man that weakens—let him look to himself!”

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The war-light began to rise in Doangivadam's eyes, and he said—

“You refuse to work. Very well, I can't make you, and I can't persuade you—but starvation can! I'll lock you into the shop, and put guards over you, and the man that breaks out shall have his reward.”

The men realized that the tables had been turned; they knew their man—he would keep his word; he had their swords, he was master of the situation. Even Katzenyammer's face went blank with the suddenness of the checkmate, and his handy tongue found nothing at the moment to say. By order the men moved by in single file and took up their march for the shop, followed by 44 and Doangivadam, who carried swords and maintained peace and order. Presently—

“Halt!” cried the commander. “There's a man missing. Where is Ernest Wasserman?”

It was found that he had slipped out while 44 was telling his story. But all right, he was heard coming, now.Ⓐ He came swaying and tottering in,Ⓐ sank into a chair, looking snow white,Ⓐ and said, “O, Lord!”

Everybody forgot the march, and crowded around him, eager to find out what dreadful thing had happened. But he couldn't answer questions, he could only moan and shiver and say—Ⓐ

“Don't ask me! I've been to the shop!Ⓐ O, lordy-lord, oh, lordy-lord!”

They couldn't get a thing out of him but that, he was that used up and gone to pieces. Then there was a break for the shop, Doangivadam in the lead, and the rest clattering after him through the dim and mustyⒶ corridors. When we arrived we saw a sight to turn a person to stone: there before our eyesⒶ the press was whirlingⒶ out printed sheets faster than a person could count them—just snowing them onto the pile, as you may say—Ⓐyet there wasn't a human creature in sight anywhere!

And that wasn'tⒶ all, nor the half. All the other printing-shop work was going briskly on—Ⓐyet nobody there, not a living thing to be seen! You would see a sponge get up and dip itself in a basin of water; see it sail along through the air; see it halt anⒶ inch above a

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galley of dead matter and squeeze itself and drench the galley, then toss itself aside; then an invisible expert would flirt the leads out of that matter so fast they fairly seemed to rain onto the imposing-stone, and you would see the matter contract and shrink together under the process; next you would see as much as five inches of that matter separate itself from the mass and rise in the air and stand upright; see it settle itself upon that invisible expert's ring-finger as upon a seat; see it move across the room and pause above a case and go to scattering itself like lightning into the boxes—raining again? yes, it was like that.Ⓐ And in half or three-quarters of no time you would see that five inches of matter scatter itself out and another five come and take its place; and in another minute or twoⒶ there would be a mountain of wet type in every box and the job finished.

At other cases you would see “sticks” hovering in the air above the space-box; see a line set, spaced, justified and the rule slipped over in the time it takes a person to snap his fingers; next minute the stick is full! next moment it is emptied into the galley! and in ten minutes the galley's full and the case empty! It made you dizzy toⒶ see these incredible things, these impossible things.

Yes, all the different kinds of work were racing along like Sam Hill—and all in a sepulchral stillness.Ⓐ The way the press was carrying on, you would think it was making noise enough for an insurrection, but in a minute you would find it was only your fancy, it wasn't producing a sound—then you would have that sick and chilly feeling a person always has when he recognizes that he is in the presence of creatures and forces not of this world.Ⓐ The invisibles were making up forms, locking up forms, unlocking forms, carrying new signatures to the press and removing the old: abundance of movement, you see, plenty of tramping to and fro, yet you couldn't hear a footfall; there wasn't a spoken word, there wasn't a whisper, there wasn't a sigh—oh, the saddest, uncanniest silence that ever was.

But at last I noticed that there really wasⒶ one industry lacking—a couple of them: no proofs were taken, no proofs were read! Oh, these were experts, sure enough! When they did a thing, they did it right, apparently, and it hadn't any occasion to be corrected.

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Frightened?Ⓐ We were paralyzed; weⒶ couldn't move a limb to get away, we couldn't even cross ourselves, we were so nerveless. And we couldn't look away, the spectacle of those familiar objects drifting about in the air unsupported, and doing their complex and beautiful work without visible help, was so terrifyinglyⒶ fascinating that we had to look and keep on looking, we couldn't help it.

At the end of half an hour the distribution stopped, and the composing. In turn, one industry after another ceased. Last of all, the churning and fluttering press's tremendous energies came to a stand-still; invisible hands removed the form and washed it, invisible hands scraped the bed and oiled it, invisible hands hung the frisket on its hook. Not anywhereⒶ in the place was any motion, any movement, now; there was nothing there but a soundless emptiness, a ghostly hush. This lasted during a few clammyⒶ moments, then came a sound from the furthest case—soft, subdued, but harsh, gritty, mocking, sarcastic: the scraping of a rule on a box-partition! and with it came half a dozen dim and muffled spectral chuckles, the dry and crackly laughterⒶ of the dead, as it seemed to me.

In about a minute something cold passed by. Not wind, just cold. I felt it on my cheek. It was one of those ghosts; I did not need any one to tell me that; it had that damp, tomby feel which you do not get from any live person. We all shrankⒶ together, so as not to obstruct the others. They straggled along by at their leisure, and we counted the frosts as they passed: eightⒶ.Ⓐ

We arrivedⒶ back to our beer-and-chess room troubled and miserable. Our adventure went the rounds ofⒶ the castle, and soon the ladies and the servants came, pale and frightened, and when they heard the facts it knocked them dumb for one while, which was not a bad thing.

But the men were not dumb. They boldly proposed to denounce the magician to the Church and get him burnt, for this thing was a

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little too much, they said. And just then the magician appeared, and when he heard those awful words, fire and the Church, he was that scared he couldn't stand; the bones fairly melted in his legs and he squshed down in a chair alongside of Frau SteinⒶ and Maria, and began to beg and beseech. His airy pride and self-sufficiency had allⒶ gone out of him, and he pretended with all his might that he hadn't brought those spectres and hadn't had anything to do with it. He seemed so earnest that a body could hardly keep from believing him, and so distressed that I had to pity him though I had no love for him, but only admiration.

But Katzenyammer pressed him hard, and so did Binks and Moses Haas, and when Maria and her mother tried to put in a word for him they convinced nobody and did him no good. Doangivadam put the climax to the poor man's trouble and hit the nail on the head with a remark which everybody recognized as the wisest and tellingest thing that had been said yet. He said—

“Balthasar Hoffman, such things don't happen by accident—you know that very well, and we all do. You are the only person in the castle that has the power to do a miracle like that. Now then—firstly, it happened; secondly, it didn't happen by itself; thirdly, you are here.Ⓐ What would anybody but a fool conclude?”

Several shouted—

“He's got him! got him where he can't budge!”

Another shouted—Ⓐ

“He doesn't answer, and he can't—the stake's the place for him!”

The poor old thing began to cry. The men rose againstⒶ him in a fury; they were going to seizeⒶ him and hale him before the authorities, but Doangivadam interposed some more wisdom, good and sound. He said—

“Wait. It isn't the best way. He will leave the enchantment on, for revenge. We want it taken off, don't we?”

Everybody agreed, by acclamation. Doangivadam certainly had a wonderful head, and full of talent.Ⓐ

“Very well, then. Now Balthasar Hoffman, you've got a chance for your life. It has suited you to deny, in the most barefaced way, that you put that enchantment on—let that pass, itⒶ doesn't signify.

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What we want to know now, is, if we let you alone, do you promise it shan't happen again?”

It brought up his spirits like raising the dead, he was so glad and grateful.

“I do, I do!” he said; “on my honor it shan't happen again.”

It made the greatest change. Everybody was pleased, and the awful shadow of that fear vanished from all facesⒶ, and they were as doomed men that had been saved. Doangivadam made the magician give his honor that he would not try to leave the castle, but would stand by, and be a safeguard; and went on to say—

“That enchantment had malice back of it. It is my opinion that those invisible creatures have been setting up and printing mere rubbishⒶ, in order to use up the paper-supply and defeat the master's contract and ruin him. I want somebody to go and see. Who will volunteer?”

There was a large silence; enough of it to spread a foot deep over four acres. It spread further and further, and got thicker and thicker. Finally Moses Haas said,Ⓐ in his mean way—

“Why don't you go?”

They all had to smile at that, for it was a good hit. Doangivadam managed to work up a smile, too, but you could see it didn't taste good; then he said—

“I'll be frank about it. I don't go because I am afraid to. Who is the bravest person here?”

Nearly everybody nominated Ernest Wasserman, and laughed, and Doangivadam ordered him to go and see, but he spoke out with disgust and indignation and said—

“See you in hellⒶ, first, and then I wouldn't!”

Then old Katrina spoke up proud and high, and said—

“There's my boy, there. I layⒶ he's not afraid. Go 'long and look, child.”

They thought 44 wouldn'tⒶ, but I thought he wouldⒶ, and I was right, for he started right along, and Doangivadam patted him on the head and praised his pluck as he went by. It annoyedⒶ Ernest Wasserman and made him jealous, and he pursed upⒶ his lips and said—

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“I wasn't afraid to go, but I'm no slave and I wasn't going to do it on any random unclassifiedⒶ Tom-Dick-and-Harry's orders.”

Not a person laughed or said a word, but every man got out his composing rule and scraped wood, and the noise of it was like a concert of jackasses. That is a thing that will take the stiffening out of the conceitedest donkey you can start, and it squelched Ernest Wasserman, and he didn't pipe up any more. Forty-FourⒶ came back with an astonisher. He said—

“The invisibles have finished the job, and it's perfect. The contract is saved.”

“Carry that news to the master!” shoutedⒶ Doangivadam, and Marget got right up and started on that mission; and when she delivered it and her uncleⒶ saw he was saved in purse and honor and everything, it was medicine for him, and he was a well man again or next to it before he was an hour older.

Well, the men looked that disgusted, you can't think—at least those that had gotten up the strike. It was a good deal of a pill, and Katzenyammer said so; and said—

“We've got to take it—but there'll be sugar on it. We've lost the game, but I'll not call off the strike nor let a man go to work till we've been paid waiting-wagesⒶ.”

The men applauded.

“What's waiting-wages?” inquired Doangivadam.

“Full wages for the time we've lost during the strike.”

“M-y—word! Well, if that isn't cheek! You're to be paid for time lost in trying to ruin the master! Meantime, where does he come in? Who pays him his waiting-time?”

The leadersⒶ tossed their heads contemptuously, and Binks said he wasn't interested in irrelevances.

So thereⒶ we were, you see—at a stand-still. There was plenty of work on hand, and the “takes” were on the hooks in the shop, but the men stood out; they said they wouldn't go near the place till their waiting-wages had been paid and the shop spiritually disinfected by the priest.Ⓐ The master was as firm; he said he would never submit to that extortion.

It seemed to be a sort of drawn battle, after all. The master had won the biggest end of the game, but the rest of it remained in the

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men's hands. This was exasperating and humiliating, but it was a fact just the same, and the men did a proper amount of crowing over it.

About this time Katzenyammer had a thought which perhaps had occurred to others, but he was the first to utter it. He said, with a sneer—

“A lot is being taken for granted—on not even respectable evidence, let alone proof. How do we know the contract has been completed and saved?”

It certainly was a hit, everybody recognized that; in fact you could call it a sockdolajer, and not be any out of the way. The prejudice against 44 was pretty strong, you know. Doangivadam was jostled—you could see it. He didn't know what to say—you could see that, too. Everybody had an expression on his face, now—a very exultant one on the rebel side, a very uncomfortableⒶ one on the other—with two exceptions: Katrina and 44; 44 hadn't any expression at all—his face was wood; but Katrina'sⒶ eyes were snapping. She said—

“I know what you mean, you ornery beer-jug, you Katzenyammer; you mean he's a liar. Well, then, why don't you go and see for yourself? Answer me that—why don't you?”

“I don't need to, if you want to know. It's nothing to me—I don't care what becomes of the contract.”

“Well, then, keep your mouth shut and mind your own business. You dasn't go, and you know it. Why, you great big mean coward, to call a poor friendless boy a liar, and then ain't man enough to go and prove it!”

“Look here, woman,Ⓐ if you—”

“Don't you call me woman, you scum of the earth!” and she strode to him and stood over him; “say it again and I'll tear you to rags!”

The bully murmured—

“I take it back,” which made many laugh.

KatrinaⒶ faced about and challenged the house to go and see. There was a visible shrinkage all around. No answer. Katrina looked at Doangivadam. He slowly shook his head,Ⓐ and said—

“I'll not deny it—I lack the grit.”

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Then Katrina stretched herself away up in the air and said—Ⓐ

“I'm under the protection of the Queen of Heaven, and I'll go myself! Come along, 44.”

They were gone a considerable time. When they returned Katrina said—

“He showed me everything and explained it all, and it's just exactly as he told you.”Ⓐ She searchedⒶ the house, face by face,Ⓐ with her eyes, then settled them upon Katzenyammer and finished: “Is there any polecat here that's got the sand to doubt it now?”

Nobody showed up.Ⓐ Several of our side laughed, and Doangivadam he laughed too, and fetched his fist down withⒶ a bangⒶ on the table like the Lord Chief Justice delivering an opinionⒶ,Ⓐ and said—

“That settles it!”

Next dayⒶ was pretty dreary. The men wouldn't go to work, but loafed around moody and sour and uncomfortable. There was not much talk; what there was was mumbled, in the main, by pairs. There was no general conversation. At meals silence was the rule. At night there was no jollityⒶ, and before ten all had disappeared to their rooms and the castle was a dim and grim solitude.

The day after, the same. Wherever 44 came he got ugly looks, threatening looks, and I was afraid for him and wanted to show sympathy but was too timid. I tried to think I avoided him for his own good, but did not succeed to my satisfaction. As usual, he did not seem to know he was being so scowled at and hated. He certainly could be inconceivably stupid at times, for all he was so capable at others.Ⓐ Marget pitied him and said kind things to him, and Doangivadam was cordial and handsome to him, and whenever DoangivadamⒶ saw one of those scowls he insulted the man that exhibited it and invited him to exhibit it again, which he didn't. Of course Katrina was 44'sⒶ friend right along. But the friendliness was confined to those three, at least as far as any open show of it went.

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So things drifted along, till the contract-gentlemen came for the goods. They brought a freight wagonⒶ along, and it waited in the great court.Ⓐ There was an embarrassment, now. Who would box-upⒶ the goods? Our men? Indeed, no. They refused, and said they wouldn't allow any outsider to do it, either.Ⓐ And Katzenyammer said to DoangivadamⒶ, while he was pleading—

“Save your breath—the contract has failed, after all!”

It made Doangivadam mad, and he said—

“It hasn't failed, either. I'll box the things myself, and Katrina and I will load them into the wagon. Rather than see you people win, I'll chance death by ghost and fright. I reckon Katrina's Virgin can protect the twoⒶ of us.Ⓐ Perhaps you boys will interfere. I have my doubts.”

The men chuckled, furtively. They knew he had spoken rashly. They knew he had not taken into account the size and weight of those boxes.Ⓐ

He hurried away and had a private word with the master, saying—

“It's all arranged, sir. Now if you—”

“Excellent! and most unexpected. Are the men—”

“No, but no matter, it's arranged. If you can feed and wineⒶ and otherwise sumptuously and satisfactorily entertain your guests three hours, I'll have the goods in the wagon then.”

“Oh, many, many thanks—I'll make them stay all night.”

Doangivadam came to the kitchen, then, and told Katrina and 44 all this, and I was there just at that timeⒶ and heard it; and Katrina said all right, she would protect him to the shop, now, and leave him in the care of the Virgin while he did the packing,Ⓐ and in two hours and a half dinner would be down to the wine and nuts and thenⒶ she would come and help carry the boxes.Ⓐ Then he left withⒶ her,Ⓐ but I stayed, for no strikerⒶ would be likely to venture into the kitchen, therefore I could be in 44's company without danger. When Katrina got back, she said—Ⓐ

“That Doangivadam's a gem of the ocean—he's a man, that's what he is, not a waxworkⒶ, like that Katzenyammer. I wasn't going to discourage him, but we can't carry the boxes. There's five,Ⓐ and

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each of them a barrow-load;Ⓐ and besides, there has to be four carriers to the barrow. And then—”

Forty-FourⒶ interrupted:

“There's two of you, and I'll be the other two. You two will carry one end, and I'll carry the other.Ⓐ I am plenty strong enough.”

“Child, you'll just stay out of sight, that's what you'll do. Do you want to provoke the men every way you can think of, you foolish little numskullⒶ? Ain't they down on you a plenty, just the way it is?”

“But you see, you two can't carry the boxes, and if you'll only let me help—”

“You'll not budge a step—do you hearⒶ me?” She stood stern and resoluteⒶ, with her knuckles in her hips. The boy looked disappointed and grieved, and that touched her.Ⓐ She dropped on her knees where he sat, and took his face between her hands, and said, “Kiss your old mother, and forgive”—which he did, and the tears came into her eyes, which a moment before were so stormy.Ⓐ “Ain't you all I've got in the world? and don't I love the ground you walk on, and can I bear to see you getting into more and more danger all the time, and no need of it? Here, bless your heart,” and she jumped up and brought a pie, “You and August sample that, and be good. It ain't the kindⒶ you get outside of this kitchen, that you can't tell from plate-mail when you bite it in the dark.”

We began on the pie with relish, and of course conversation failed for a time. By and by 44 said, softly—Ⓐ

“Mother, he gave his word, you know.”

KatrinaⒶ was hit. She had to suspend work and think that over. She seated herself against the kitchen table, with her legs aslant and braced, and her arms folded and her chin down, and muttered several times, “Yes, that's so, he did.” Finally she unlimbered and reached for the butcher-knife, which she fell to sharpening with energy on a brick. Then she lightly tested its edge with the ball of her thumbⒶ, and said—

“I know it—we've gotⒶ to have two more. Doangivadam will force one, and I bet I'll persuade the other.”

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“Now I'm content,” said 44, fervently, which made Katrina beam with pleasureⒶ.

We stayed there in the comfortable kitchen and chatted and played checkers, intending to be asked by Katrina to take our dinner with her, for she was the friendliest and best table-company we had. As time drew on, it became jolly in the master's private dining-room where it was his custom to feed guests of honor and distinction, and whenever a waiter came in or went out we could hear the distantⒶ bursts of merriment, and by and by bursts of song, also, showing that the heavy part of the feeding had been accomplished. Then we had our dinner with Katrina, and about the time we had finished, Doangivadam arrived hungry and pretty well tired out and said he had packed every box;Ⓐ but he wouldn't take a bite, he said, until his job was finished up and the wagon loaded. So Katrina told him her plan for securing extra help by compulsion and persuasion, and he liked it and they started. Doangivadam said he hadn't seen any of the men in sight, therefore he judged they must be lying in wait somewhere about the great court so as to interrupt any scheme of bribing the two porters of the freight wagon to help carry the boxes; so it was his idea to go there and see.

Katrina ordered us to stay behind, which we didn't do, after they were out of sight. We went down by secret passages and reached the court ahead of them, and hid. We were near the wagon. The driver and porters had been given their supper,Ⓐ and had been to the stalls to feed and water the horses, and now they were walking up and down chatting and waiting to receiveⒶ the freight. Our two friends arrived now, and in low voices began to ask these men if they had seen any men of the castle around about there, but before they could answer, something happened: we saw some dim big bulks emerge from our side of the court about fifty yards away and come in procession in our direction. Swiftly they grew more and more distinct under the stars and by the dim lamps, and they turnedⒶ out to be men, and each of them was drooping under one of our big freight boxes. The idea—carrying it all alone! And another surprising thing was, that when the first man passed us it turned

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out to be Katzenyammer! Doangivadam was delighted out of his senses, almost, and said some splendid words of praise about his change of heart, but Katzenyammer could only grunt and growl,Ⓐ he was strained so by his burden.

And the next man was Binks! and there was more praise and more grunts. And next came Moses Haas—think of it! And then Gustav Fischer! And after him, the end of the procession—Ernest Wasserman! Why, Doangivadam could hardly believe it, and said he didn't believe it, and couldn't; and said “Is it you, Ernest?” and Ernest told him to go to hell, and then Doangivadam was satisfied and said “that settles it.”

For that was Ernest's common word, and you could know him by it in the dark.Ⓐ

Katrina couldn't say a word, she just stood there dazed. She saw the boxes stowed in the wagon, she saw the gang file back and disappear, and still she couldn't get her voice till then; and even then all she could say, was—

“Well, it beats the band!”

Doangivadam followed them a little way, and wanted to have a supper and a night of it, but they answered him roughly and he had to give it up.

The freight wagon left at dawn; the honored guests had a late breakfast, paid down theⒶ money on the contract, then after a good-bye bottle they departed in their carriage. About ten the master, full of happiness and forgiveness and benevolent feeling, had the men assembled in the beer-and-chess room, and began a speech that was full of praises of the generous way they had thrown ill-will to the winds at the last moment and loaded the wagon last night and saved the honor and the life of his house—and went on and on, like that, with the water in his eyes and his voice trembling; and there the men sat and stared at one another, and at the master,

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with their mouths open and their breath standing still; till at last Katzenyammer burst out with—

“What in the nation are you mooning about? Have you lost your mind?Ⓐ We've saved you nothing; we've carried no boxes”—here he rose excited and banged the table—“and what's more, we've arrangedⒶ that nobody else shall carry a box or load that wagonⒶ till our waiting-time's paid!”Ⓐ

Well, think of it! The master was so astonished that for a moment or two he couldn't pull his language; then he turned sadlyⒶ and uncertainly to Doangivadam and said—

“I could not have dreamed it. Surely you told me that they—”

“Certainly I did. I told you they brought down the boxes—”

“Listen at him!” cried Binks, springing to his feet.

“—Ⓐthose five there—ⒶKatzenyammer at the head, Wasserman at the tail—”

“As sure as my name's Was—”

“—Ⓐeach with a box on his shoulders—”

All were on their feet, now, and they drowned out the speaker with a perfect deluge of derisive laughter, out of the midst of which burst Katzenyammer's bull-voice shouting—

“Oh, listen to the maniac! Each carrying a box weighing five—hundred—pounds!”

Everybody took up that telling refrain and screamed it and yelled it with all his might. Doangivadam saw the killing force of the argument, and began to look very foolish—which the men saw, and they roared at him, challenging him to get up and purge his soul and trim his imagination. He was caught in a difficult place, and he did not try to let on that he was in easy circumstances. He got up and said, quietly, and almost humbly—

“I don't understand it, I can't explain it. I realize that no man here could carry one of those boxes; and yet as sure as I am alive I saw it done, just as I have said. Katrina saw it too. We were awake, and not dreaming. I spoke to every one of the five. I saw them load the boxes into the wagon. I—”

Moses Haas interrupted:

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“Excuse me, nobody loaded any boxes into the wagon. It wouldn't have been allowed. We've kept the wagon under watch.” Then he said, ironically, “Next, the gentleman will work his imagination up to saying the wagon is gone and the master paid.”

It was good sarcasm, and they all laughed; but the master said, gravely, “Yes, I have been paid,” and Doangivadam said, “Certainly the wagon is gone.”

“Oh, come!” said Moses, leaving his seat, “this is going a little too far;Ⓐ it's a trifle too brazen; come out and say it to the wagon's face. If you've got the cheek to do it, follow me.”

He moved ahead, and everybody swarmed after him, eager to see what would happen. I was getting worried; nearly half convinced, too; so it was a relief to me when I saw that the court was empty. Moses said—

“Now then, what do you call that? Is it the wagon, or isn't it?”

Doangivadam's face took on the light of a restored confidence and a great satisfaction, and he said—

“I see no wagon.”

“What!”Ⓐ in a general chorus.

“No—I don't see any wagon.”

“Oh, great guns! perhaps the master will say he doesn't see a wagon.”

“Indeed I see none,” said the master.

“Wel-l, well, well!” said Moses, and was plumb nonplussed. Then he had an idea, and said, “Come, Doangivadam, you seem to be near-sighted—please to follow me and touch the wagon, and see if you'll have the hardihood to go on with this cheapⒶ comedy.”

They walked briskly out a piece, then Moses turned pale and stopped.

“By God, it's gone!” he said.

There was more than one startled face in the crowd. They crept out, silent and looking scared; then they stopped, and sort of moaned—

“It is gone; it was a ghost-wagon.”

Then they walked right over the place where it had been, and crossed themselves and muttered prayers. Next they broke into a

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fury, and went storming back to the chess-room, and sent for the magician, and charged him with breaking his pledge, and swore the Church should have him now; and the more he begged the more they scared him, till at last they grabbed him to carry him off—then he broke down, and said that if they would spare his life he would confess. They told him to go ahead, and said if his confession was not satisfactory it would be the worse for him. He said—

“I hate to say it—I wish I could be spared it—oh, the shame of it, the ingratitude of it! But—pity me, pity me!—I have been nourishing a viper in my bosom. That boy, that pupil whom I have so loved —in my foolish fondness I taught him several of my enchantments, and now he is using them for your hurt and my ruin!”

It turned me sick and faint, the way the men plunged at 44, crying “Kill him, kill him!” but the master and Doangivadam jumped in and stood them off and saved him. Then Doangivadam talked some wisdom and reasonableness into the gang which had good effect. He said—

“What is the use to kill the boy? He isn't the source; whatever power he has, he gets from his master, this magician here. Don't you believe that if the magician wants to, he can put a spell on the boy that will abolish his power and make him harmless?”

Of course that was so, and everybody saw it and said so. So then Doangivadam worked some more wisdom: instead of letting on to know it all himself, he gave the others a chance to seem to know a little of what was left.Ⓐ He asked them to assist him in this difficult case and suggest some wise and practical way to meet this emergency. It flatteredⒶ them, and they unloaded the suggestion that the magician be put under bond to shut off the boy's enchantments, on pain of being delivered to the Church if anything happened again.

Doangivadam said it was the very thing; and praised the idea, and let on to think it was wonderfully intelligent, whereas it was only what he had suggested himself, and what anybody would have thought of and suggested, including the cat, there being no other way with any sense in it.

So they bonded the magician, and he didn't lose any time in furnishing the pledgeⒶ and getting a new lease on his hide. Then he

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turned on the boy and reproached him for his ingratitude, and then he fired up on his subject and turned his tongue and his temper loose, and most certainly he did give him down the banks and roll Jordan roll!Ⓐ I never felt so sorry for a person, and I think others were sorry for him, too, though they would have said that as long as he deserved it he couldn't expect to be treated any gentler, and it would be a valuable lesson to him anyway,Ⓐ and save him future trouble, and worse. The way the magician finished, was awful; it made your blood run cold. He walked majesticallyⒶ across the room with his solemn professional stride, which meant that something was going to happen. He stopped in the door and faced around, everybody holding their breath, and said, slow and distinct, and pointing his long finger—

“Look at him, there where he sits—and remember my words, and the doom they are laden with. I have put him under my spells; if he thinks he can dissolve them and do you further harm, let him try. But I make this pledge and compact: on the day that he succeeds I will put an enchantment upon him, here in this room, which shall slowly consume him to ashes before your eyes!”

Then he departed. Dear me,Ⓐ but it was a startled crowd! Their faces were that white—and they couldn't seem to say a word. But there was one good thing to see—Ⓐthere was pity in every faceⒶ of them! That was human nature, wasn't it—Ⓐwhen your enemy is in awful trouble, to be sorry for him, even when your pride won't let you go and say it to him before company? But the master and Doangivadam went and comforted him and begged him to be careful and work no spells and run no risks; and even Gustav FischerⒶ ventured to go by,Ⓐ and heave out a kindly word in passing; and pretty soon the news had gone about the castle, and Marget and Katrina came; they begged him, too, and both got to crying, and that made him so conspicuous and heroic, that Ernest Wasserman was bursting with jealousy, and you could see he wished he was advertised for roasting, too, if this was what you get for it.

Katrina had sassed the magician more than once and had not seemed to be afraid of him, but this time her heart was concerned and her pluck was all gone. She went to him, with the crowd at her

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heels, and went on her knees and begged him to be good to her boy, and stay his hand from practising enchantments, and be his guardian and protector and save him from the fire. Everybody was moved. Except the boy. It was one of his times to be an ass and a wooden-head. He certainly could choose them with the worst judgment I ever saw. Katrina was alarmed; she was afraid his seeming lack of interest would have a bad effect with the magician, so she did his manners for him and conveyed his homage and his pledges of good behavior, and hurried him out of the presence.

Well, to my mind there is nothing that makes a person interesting like his being about to get burnt up. We had to take 44 to the sick lady's room and let her gazeⒶ at him, and shudder, and shrivel, and wonder how he would look when he was done; she hadn't had such a stirring up for years, and it acted on her kidneys and her spine and her livers and all those things and her other works, and started up her flywheel and her circulation, and she said, herself, it had done her more good than any bucketful of medicine she had taken that week. And begged him to come again, and he promised he would if he could. AlsoⒶ said if he couldn't he would send her some of the ashes; for he certainly was a good boy at bottom, and thoughtful.

They all wanted to see him, even people that had taken hardly any interest in him before—like Sara and Duffles and the other maids, and Fritz and Jacob and the other men-servantsⒶ. And they were all tender toward him, and ever so gentle and kind, and gave him little things out of their poverty, and were ever so sorry, and showed it by the tears in their eyes. But not a tear out of him, you might have squeezed him in the hydraulic press and you wouldn't have got dampness enough to cloud a razor, it being one of his blamed wooden times, you know.

Why, even Frau Stein and Maria were full of interest in him, and gazed at him, and asked him how it felt—in prospect, you know—and said a lot of things to him that came nearer being kind, than anything they were used to saying, by a good deal. It was surprising how popular he was, all of a sudden, now that he was in such awful danger if he didn't behave himself. And although I was

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around with him I never got a sour look from the men, and so I hadn't a twinge of fear the whole time. And then the supper we had that night in the kitchen!—Katrina laid out her whole strength on it, and criedⒶ all over it, and it was wonderfully good and salty.Ⓐ

Katrina told us to go and pray all night that GodⒶ would not leadⒶ 44 into temptation, and she would do the same. I was ready and anxious to begin, and we went to my room.

But whenⒶ we got there I saw that 44 was not minded to pray, but was full of other and temporalⒶ interests. I was shocked, and deeply concerned; for I felt rising in me with urgencyⒶ a suspicion which had troubled me several times before, but which I had ungently put from me each time—that he was indifferent to religion. I questioned him—he confessed it! I leave my distress and consternation to be imaginedⒶ, I cannot describe them.

In that paralysing moment my life changed, and I was a different being; I resolved to devote my life, with all the affections and forces and talents which God had given me to the rescuing of this endangered soul. Then all my spiritⒶ was invaded and suffused with a blessed feeling, a divine sensation, which I recognized as the approval of God. I knew by that sign, as surely as if He had spoken to me, that I was His appointed instrument for thisⒶ great work. I knew that He would help me in it; I knew that whenever I should need light and leading I could seek it in prayer, and have it; I knew—

“I get the idea,” said 44, breaking lightly in upon my thought,Ⓐ “it will be a FirmⒶⒶ, with its headquarters up there and its hindquarters down here. There's a duplicate of it in every congregation—in every family, in fact. Wherever you find a warty little devoteeⒶ who isn't in partnership with God—as he thinks—on a speculation to save some little warty soul that's no more worth saving than his own, stuff him and put him in the museum, it is where he belongs.”

“Oh, don't say such things, I beseech you! They are so shocking,

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and so awful. And so unjust; for in the sight of God all souls are precious, there is no soul that is not worth saving.”

But the words had no effect. He was in one of his frivolous moods, and when these were upon him one could not interest him in serious things.Ⓐ For all answer to what I had been saying, he said in a kindly but quite unconcerned way that we would discuss this trifle at another time, but not now. That was the very word he used; and plainly he used it without any sense of its gross impropriety. Then he added this strange remark—

“For the moment, I am not living in the present century, but in one which interests me more, for the time being. You prayⒶ, if you like—never mind me, I will amuse myself with a curious toy if it won't disturb you.”

He got a little steel thing out of his pocket and set it between his teeth, remarking “it's a jew's-harpⒶ—the niggers use it”—and began to buffet out of it a most urgent and strenuous and vibrant and exceedingly gay and inspiriting kind of music, and at the same time he went violentlyⒶ springing and capering and swooping and swirling all up and down the room in a way to banish prayer and make a person dizzy to look at him; and now and then he would utter the excess of his joy in a wild whoop, and at other times he would leap into the air and spin there head over heelsⒶ for as much as a minute like a wheel, and so frightfully fast that he was all webbed together and you could hear him buzz. And he kept perfect time to his music all the while. It was a most extravagant and stirring and heathenⒶ performance.

Instead of being fatigued by it he was only refreshed. He came and sat down by me and rested his hand on my knee in his winningⒶ way, and smiled his beautiful smileⒶ, and asked me how I liked it. It was so evident that he was expecting a compliment, that I was obliged to furnish it. I had not the heart to hurt him, and he so innocently proud of his insane exhibition. I could not expose to him how undignified it was, and how degrading, and how difficult it had been for me to stand it through; I forced myself to say it was “ideal—more than ideal;” whichⒶⒶ was of course a perfectly meaningless phrase, but he was just hungry enough for a compliment to

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make him think this was one, and also make him overlook what was going on in my mind; so his face was fairly radiant with thanks and happiness, and he impulsively hugged me and said—

“It's lovely of you to like it so. I'll do it again!”

And at it he went, God assoil him,Ⓐ like a tempest. I couldn't say anything, it was my own fault. Yet I was not reallyⒶ to blame, for I could not foreseeⒶ that he would take that uninflamed compliment for an invitation to do the fiendish orgy over again. He kept it up and kept it up until my heart was broken and all my body and spiritⒶ so worn and tired and desperate that I could not hold in any longer, I had to speak out and beg him to stop, and not tire himself so. It was another mistake; damnation, he thought I was suffering on his account!Ⓐ so he piped out cheerily, as he whizzed by—

“Don't worry about me; sit right where you are and enjoy it, I can do it all night.”

I thought I would go outⒶ and find a good place to die, and was starting, when he called out in a grieved and disappointed tone—

“Ah, you are not going, are you?”

“Yes.”

“What for?Ⓐ Don't go—please don't.”

“Are you going to keep still? Because I am not going to stay here and see you tire yourself to death.”

“Oh, it doesn't tire me in the least, I give you my word. Do stay.”

Of course I wanted to stay, but not unless he would sit down and act civilized, and give me a rest. For a time he could not seem to get the situation through his head—for he certainly could be the dullest animal that ever was, at times—but at lastⒶ he looked up with a wounded expression in his big soft eyes, and said—

“August, I believe you do not want any more.”

Of course that broke me all down andⒶ made me ashamed of myself, and in my anxiety to heal the hurt I had given and see him happy again I came within a hair's breadth of throwing all judgment and discretion to the winds and saying I did want more. But I did not do it; the dread and terror of what would certainly follow, tied my tongue and saved my life. I adroitly avoided a direct answerⒶ to what he had said, by suddenly cryingⒶ “ouch!” and grabbing at an

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imaginary spider inside my collar, whereupon he forgot his troubles at once in his concern for me. He plunged his hand in and raked it around my neck and fetched out three spiders—real ones, whereas I had supposed there was none there but imaginary ones. It was quite unusual for any but imaginary ones to be around at that time of the year, which was February.Ⓐ

We had a pleasant time together, but no religious conversation, for whenever I began to frame a remark of that color he saw it in my mind and squelched it with that curious power of his whereby he barred from utterance any thought of mine it happened to suit him to bar. It was an interesting time, of course, for it was the nature of 44 to be interesting. Pretty soon I noticed that we were not in my room, but in his. The change had taken place without my knowing when it happened. It was beautiful magic, but it made me feelⒶ uneasy. Forty-Four said—

“It is because you think I am traveling toward temptation.”

“I am sure you are, 44. Indeed you are already arrived there, for you are doing things of a sort which the magician has prohibited.”

“Oh,Ⓐ that's nothing! I don't obey him except when it suits me. I mean to use his enchantments wheneverⒶ I can get any entertainmentⒶ out of them, and whenever I can annoy him. I know every trick he knows, and some that he doesn't know. Tricks of my own —for I bought them; bought them from a bigger expert than he is. WhenⒶ I play my own, he is a puzzled man, for he thinks I do it by his inspiration and command, and inasmuch asⒶ he can't remember furnishing either the order or the inspiration, he is puzzled and bothered, and thinks there is something the matter with his head. He has to father everything I do, because he has begun it and can't get out of it now, and so betweenⒶ working his magic and my own I mean to build him up a reputation that will leave all other second-class magiciansⒶ in the shade.”

“It's a curious idea. Why don't you build it up for yourself?”

“I don't want it. At home we don't care for a small vanity like that, and I shouldn't value it here.”

“Where is your ho—”Ⓐ

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It got barred before I could finish. I wished in my heart I could have that gorgeous reputation which he so despised! But he paid no attention to the thought; so I sighed, and did not pursue it. Presently I got to worrying again, and said—

“Forty-FourⒶ, I foresee that before you get far with the magician's reputation you will bring a tragedy upon yourself. And you are so unprepared. You ought to prepare, 44, you ought indeed; every moment is precious. I do wish you would become a Christian; won't you try?”

He shook his head, and said—

“I should be too lonesome.”

“Lonesome? How?”

“I should be the only one.”Ⓔ

I thought it an ill jest, and said so. But he said it was not a jest—some time he would go into the matter and prove that he had spoken the truth; at present he was busy with a thing of “importance”Ⓐ—and added, placidly, “I must jack-up the magician's reputation, first.” Then he said in his kindest manner—

“You have a quality which I do not possess—fear. You are afraid of Katzenyammer and his pals, and it keeps you from being with me as much as you would like and as I would like. That can be remedied, in a quite simple way. I will teach you how to become invisible, whenever you please. I will give you a magic word. Utter it in your mind, for you can't do it with your tongue, though I can. Say it when you wish to disappear, and say it again when you wish to be visible again.”

He uttered the word, and vanished. I was so startled and so pleased and so grateful that I did not know where I was, for a moment, norⒶ which end of me was up; then I perceived that I was sitting by the fire in my own room, but I did not know how I got there.

Being a boy, I did what another boy would have done: as long as I could keep awake I did nothing but appear and disappear, and enjoy myself. I was very proud, and considered myself the superior of any boy in the land; and that was foolish, for I did not invent the

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art, it was a gift, and no merit to me that I could exercise it. Another boy with the same luck would be just as superior as I was. But these were not my thoughts, I got them later, and at second hand—where all thoughts are acquired, 44 used to say. Finally I disappeared and went to sleep happy and content, without saying one prayer for 44, and he in such danger. I never thought of it.

Forty-four, by grace of his right to wear a swordⒶ, was legally a gentleman. It suited his whim, now, to come out dressed as one. He was clever, but ill balanced; and whenever he saw a particularly good chance to be a fool, pie couldn't persuade him to let it go by; he had to sample it, he couldn't seem to help it. He was as unpopular as he could be, but the hostileⒶ feeling, the intense bitterness, had been softening little by little for twenty-four hours, on account of the awful danger his life was in, so of course he must go andⒶ choose this time of all times, to flaunt in the faces of the comps the offensive fact that he was their social equal.Ⓐ And not only did he appear in the dress of a gentleman, but the quality and splendor of it surpassed even Doangivadam'sⒶ best, and as for the others they were mereⒶ lilies of the valley to his Solomon. Embroidered buskins, with red heels; pink silk tights; pale blue satin trunks; cloth of gold doublet; short satin cape, of a blinding red; lace collar fit for a queen; the cunningest little blue velvet cap, with a slender long feather standing up out of a fastening of clustered diamonds; dress sword in a gold sheath, jeweled hilt. That was his outfit; and he carried himself like a princeling “doing a cake-walk,” as he described it. He was as beautiful as a picture, and as satisfied with himself as if he owned the earth. He had a lace handkerchief in his hand, and now and then he would give his nose a dainty little dab or two with it, the way a duchess does. It was evident that he thought he was going to be admired, and it was pitiful to see his

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disappointment when the men broke out on him with insults and ridicule and called him offensive names, and asked him where he had stolen his clothes.

He defended himself the best he could, but he was so near to crying that he could hardly control his voice. He said he had come by the clothes honestly, through the generosity of his teacher the good magician, who created them instantly out of nothing just by uttering a single magic word; and said the magician was a far mightier enchanter than they supposed; that he hadn'tⒶ shown the world the half of the wonders he could do, and he wished he was here now, he would not like it to have his humble servant abused so when he wasn't doing any harm; said he believed if he was here he would do Katzenyammer a hurt for calling his servant a thief and threatening to slap his face.

“He would, would he? Well, there he comes—let's see if he loves his poor dear servant so much,” said Katzenyammer, and gave the boy a cruel slap that you could have heard a hundred yards.

The slap spun Forty-Four around, and as soon as he saw the magician he cried out eagerly and supplicatingly—

“Oh, noble master, oh greatest and sublimest of magicians, I read your command in your eyes, and I must obey if it is your will, but I pray you, I beseech you spare me the office, do it yourself with your own just hand!”

The magician stood still and looked steadily and mutelyⒶ at Forty-Four as much as half a minute, we waiting and gazing and holding our breath; then at last 44 made a reverent bow, saying, “You are master, your will is law, and I obey,” and turned to KatzenyammerⒶ and said—

“In not very many hours you will discover what you have brought upon yourself and the others. You will see that it is not well to offend the master.”

You have seen a cloud-shadow sweep along and sober a sunlit field; just so, that darkling vague threat was a cloud-shadow to those faces there. There is nothing that is more depressing and demoralizing than the promise ofⒶ an indefinite calamity when oneⒶ is dealing

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with a powerful and maliciousⒶ necromancer. It starts large, plenty large enough, but it does not stop there, the imagination goes on spreading it, till at last it covers all the space you've got, and takes away your appetite, and fills you with dreads and miseries, and you start at every noise and are afraid of your own shadow.

Old Katrina was sent by the women to beg 44 to tell what was going to happen so that they could get relieved of a part of the crushingⒶ burden of suspense, but she could not find him, nor the magician either. Neither of them was seen, the rest of the day. At supper there was but little talk, and no mention of the subject. In the chess-room after supper there was some private and unsociable drinking, and much deep sighing, and much getting up and walking the floor unconsciously and nervously a little while, then sitting down again unconsciously; and now and then a tortured ejaculation broke out involuntarilyⒶ. At ten o'clock nobody moved to go to bed; apparently each troubled spirit found aⒶ sort of help and solaceⒶ in the near presence of its kind, and dreaded to separate itself from companionship. At half past ten no one had stirred. At eleven the same. It was most melancholy to be there like this, in the dim light of unquiet and flickering candles and in a stillnessⒶ that was broken by but few sounds and was all the more impressive because of the moaning of the wintry wind about the towers and battlements.

It was at half past eleven that it happened. Everybody was sitting steeped in musings, absorbed in thought, listening to that dirge the wind was chanting—Katzenyammer like the rest. A heavy step was heard, all glanced up nervously, and yonder in the door appeared a duplicate KatzenyammerⒶⒶ! There was one general gasping intake of breath that nearly sucked the candles out, then the house sat paralyzed and gazing. This creature was in shop-costume, and had a “take” in its hand. It was the exact reproduction of the other Katzenyammer to the last shade and detail, a mirror couldn't have told them apart. It came marching up the room with the only gait that could be proper to it—aggressive, decided, insolent—Ⓐand held out the “take” to its twin and said—

“Here! how do you want that set, leaded, or solid?”

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For about a moment the original Katzenyammer was surprised out of himself; but the next moment he was all there, and jumped up shouting—

“You bastard of black magic, I'll”—he finished with his fist, delivering a blow on the twin's jaw that would have broken anybody else's, but this jaw stood it uncrushed; then the pair danced about the place hammering, banging, ramming each other like battering machines, everybody looking on with wonder and awe and admiration, and hoping neither of them would survive. They fought half an hour, then sat down panting, exhaustedⒶ, and streaming with blood—they hadn't strength to go on.

The pair sat glaring at each other a while, then the original said—

“Look here, my man, who are you, anyway? Answer up!”

“I'm Katzenyammer, foreman of the shop. That's who I am, if you want to know.”

“It's a lie. Have you been setting type in there?”

“Yes, I have.”

“The hell you have! who told you you could?”

“I told myself. That's sufficient.”

“Not on your life! Do you belong to the union?”

“No, I don't.”

“Then you're a scab. Boys, up and at him!”

Which they did, with a will, fuming and cursing and swearing in a way which it was an education to listen to. In another minute there would not have been anything left of that DuplicateⒶ, I reckon,Ⓐ but he promptly set up a ringing shout of “Help, boys, help!” and in the same moment perfect DuplicatesⒶ of all the restⒶ of us came swarmingⒶ in and plunged into the battle!

But it was another draw. It had to be, for each DuplicateⒶ fought his own mate and was his exact match, and neither could whip the other. Then they tried the issue with swords, but it was a draw once more. The parties drew apart, now, and acrimoniously discussed the situation. The DuplicatesⒶ refused to join the union, neither would they throw up their job; they were stubbornly deaf to both threats and persuasion. So there it was—just a deadlock! If the DuplicatesⒶ remained, the OriginalsⒶⒶ were without a living—why, they couldn't

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even collect their waiting-time, now! Their impregnable position, which they had been so proud of and so arrogant about had turned to air and vacancy. These were very grave and serious facts, cold and clammy ones; and the deeper they sank down into the consciousness of the ousted men the colder and clammier they became.

It was a hard situation, and pitiful. A person may say that the men had only gotten what they deserved, but when that is said is all said? I think not. They were only human beings, they had been foolish, they deserved some punishment, but to take their very bread was surely a punishment beyond the measure of their fault. But there it was—the disaster was come, the calamity had fallen, and no man could see a way out of the difficulty. The more one examined it the more perplexing and baffling and irremediable it seemed. And all so unjust, so unfair; for in the talk it came out that the DuplicatesⒶ did not need to eat or drink or sleep,Ⓐ so long as the OriginalsⒶ did those things—there was enough for both; but when a Duplicate did them, by George,Ⓐ his OriginalⒶ got no benefit out of it! Then look at that other thing: the OriginalsⒶ were out of work and wageless, yet they would be supporting these intruding scabs, out of theirⒶⒶ food and drink, and by graciousⒶ not even a thank-you for it!Ⓐ It came out that the scabs got no pay for their work in the shop, and didn't care for it and wouldn't ask for it. Doangivadam finally hit upon a fair and honorable compromise, as he thought, and the boys came up a little out of their droop to listen. Doangivadam's idea was, for the Duplicates to do the work, and for the OriginalsⒶⒶ to take the pay, and fairly and honorably eatⒶ and sleep enough for both. It looked bright and hopeful for a moment, but then the clouds settled down again:Ⓐ the plan wouldn't answer; it would not be lawful for unions and scabs to have dealings together. So that idea had to be given up, and everybody was gloomier than ever. Meantime Katzenyammer had been drinking hard, to drown his exasperations, but it wasⒶ not effective, he couldn't seem to hold enough, and yet he was full. He was only half drunk; the trouble was, that his DuplicateⒶ had gottenⒶ the other half of the dividend, and was just as drunk, and as insufficiently drunk, as he was. When he realized this he was deeply hurt, and said reproachfully to his DuplicateⒶ,Ⓐ

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who sat there blinkingⒶ and suffused with a divine contentment—Ⓐ

“Nobody asked you to partake; such conductⒶ is grossly ill-bred; no gentleman would do such a thing.”

Some were sorry for the DuplicateⒶ, for he was not to blame, but several of the OriginalsⒶ were evidently not sorry for him, but offended at him and ashamed of him. But the DuplicateⒶ was not affected, he did not say anything, but just blinkedⒶ and looked drowsy and grateful, the same as before.

The talk went on, but it arrived nowhere, of course. The situation remained despairingly incurable and desperate. Then the talk turned upon the magician and 44, and quickly became bitter and vengeful. When it was at its sharpest, the magician came mooning in; and when he saw all those DuplicatesⒶ he was either thunderstruck with amazement or he played it well. The men were vexed to see him act so, and they said, indignantly—

“It's your own fiendish work and you needn't be pretending surprise.”

He was frightened at their looks and their manner, and hastened to deny, with energy and apparent earnestness, that this was any work of his; he said he had given a quite different command, and he only wished 44 were hereⒶ, he would keep his word and burn him to ashes for misusing his enchantments; he said he would go and find him; and was starting away, but they jumped in front of him and barred his way, and Katzenyammer-originalⒶ was furious, and said—

“You are trying to escape, but you'll not! You don't have to stir out of your tracks to produce that limb of perdition, and you know it and we know it. Summon him—summon him and destroy him, or I give my honor I will denounce you to the Holy Office!”

That was a plenty. The poor old man got white and shaky, and put up his hand and mumbled some strange words, and in an instant, bang! went a thunderclap, and there stood 44 in the midst, dainty and gay in his butterfly clothes!

All sprang up with horror in their faces to protest, for at bottom no one really wanted the boy destroyed, they only believed they did; there was a scream, and Katrina came flying, with her gray hair

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streaming behind her; for one moment a blot of black darkness fell upon the place and extinguished us all; the next moment in our midst stood that slender figure transformed to a core of dazzling white fire; in the succeeding moment it crumbled to ashes and we were blotted out in the black darkness again. Out of it rose an adoring cry—broken in the middle by a pause and a sob—

“The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken awayⒺ . . . . . . . blessed be the name of the Lord!”

It was Katrina; it was the faithful Christian parting with its all, yet still adoring the smitingⒶ hand.

I went invisible the most of the next day, for I had no heart to talk about common matters, and had rather a shrinking from talking about the matter which was uppermost in all minds. I was full of sorrow, and also of remorse, which is the way with us in the first days of a bereavement, and at such times we wish to be alone with our trouble and our bitter recallings of failings of loyalty or love toward the comrade who is gone. There were more of these sins to my charge than I could have believed; they rose up and accused me at every turn, and kept me saying with heart-wearing iteration, “Oh, if he were only back again, how true I would be, and how differently I would act.” I remembered so many times when I could perhapsⒶ have led him toward the life eternal, and had let the chance go by; and now he was lost and I to blame, and where was I to find comfort?

I always came back to that, I could not long persuade myself to other and less torturing thoughts—such, for instance, as wonderings over his yielding to the temptation to overstep the bounds of the magician's prohibition when he knew so well that it could cost him his life. Over that, of a surety, I might and did wonder in vain, quite in vain; there was no understanding it. He was volatile, and lacking in prudence, I knew that; but I had not dreamed that he

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was entirelyⒶ destitute of prudence, I had not dreamed that he could actually risk his life to gratify a whim. Well, and what was I trying to get out of these reasonings? This—and I had to confess it: I was trying to excuse myself for my desertion of him in his sore need; when my promised prayers, which might have saved him,Ⓐ were withheld, and neglected, and even forgotten. I turned here and there and yonder for solace, but in every path stood an accusing spirit and barred the way; solace for me there was none.

No one of the household was indifferent to Katrina's grief, and the most of them went to her and tried to comfort her. I was not of these, I could not have borne it if she had asked me if I had prayed as I had said I would, or if she had thanked me for my prayers, taking for granted that I had kept my word. But I sat invisible while the others offered their comforting words; and every sob that came from her broken heart was another reproach and gave me a guilty pang. But her misery could not be abated. She moaned and wept, saying over and over again that if the magician had only shownⒶ a little mercy, which could have cost him nothing, and had granted time for a priest to come and give her boy absolution, all would have been well, and now he would be happy in heaven and she in the earth—but no! he had cruelly sent the lad unassoiled to judgment and the eternal fires of hell, and so had doomed her also to the pains of hell forevermore, for in heaven she should feel them all the days of eternity, looking down upon him suffering thereⒶ and she powerless to assuage his thirst with one poor drop of water!

There was another thing which wrung her heart, and she could not speak of it without new floods of tears:Ⓐ her boy had died unreconciled to the Church, and his ashes couldⒶ not be buried in holy ground; noⒶ priest could be present, no prayer uttered above them by consecrated lips, they were as the ashes of the beasts that perish, and fit only to lie in a dishonored grave.

And now and then, with a new outburst of love and grief she would paint the graces of his form, and the beauty of his youngⒶ face, and his tenderness for her, and tell this and that and the other little thing that he had done or said, so dear and fond, so prized at the time, so sacred now forevermore!

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I could not endure it; and I floatedⒶ from the place upon the unrevealing air, and went wandering here and there disconsolate and finding everywhere reminders of him, and a new heartbreak with each.

By reason of the strange and uncannyⒶ tragedy, all the household were in a subdued and timorous state, and full of vague and formless and depressing apprehensions and boding terrors, and they went wandering about, aimless, comfortless and forlorn; and such talking together as there was, was of the disjointed and rambling sort that indicates preoccupation. However, if the DuplicatesⒶ were properly of the household, what I have just been saying does not include them. They were not affected, they did not seem interested. They stuck industriously to their work, and one met them going to it or coming from it, but they did not speak except when spoken to. They did not go to the table, nor to the chess-room; theyⒶⒶ did not seem to avoid us, they took no pains about that, they merely did not seek us. But we avoided them, which was natural. Every time I met myself unexpectedly I got a shock and caught my breath, and was as irritated for being startled as a person is when he runs up against himself in a mirrorⒺ which he didn't know was there.Ⓐ

Of course the destruction of a youth by supernatural flames summoned unlawfully from hell was not an event that could be hidden. The news of it went quickly all about and made a great and terrifying excitement in the village and the region, and at once a summons came for the magician to appear before a commission of the Holy Office. He could not be found. Then a second summons was posted, admonishing him to appear within twenty-four hours or remain subject to the pains and penalties attaching to contumacy. It did not seem to us likely that he would accept either of these invitations, if he could get out of it.

All day long, things went as I have described—a dreary time. Next day it was the same, with the added gloom of the preparations for the burial. This took place at midnight, in accordance with the law in such cases, and was attended by all the occupants of the castle except the sick lady and the DuplicatesⒶ. We buried the ashes in waste ground half a mile from the castle, without prayer or

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blessing, unless the tears of Katrina and our sorrow were in some sense a blessing. It was a gustyⒶ night, with flurries of snow, and a black sky with ragged cloud-rack driving across it.Ⓐ We came on foot, bearing flaring and unsteadyⒶ torches; and when all was over, we inverted the torches and thrust them into the soft mould of the grave and so left them, sole and perishable memorial and remembrancer of him who was gone.

Home again, it was with a burdened and desolate weight at my heartⒶ that I entered my room. There sat the corpse!Ⓐ

My senses forsook meⒶ and I should have fallen, but it put up its hand and flipped its fingers toward me and this brought an influence of some kind which banished my faint and restored me; yes, more than that, for I was fresher and finer now than I had been before the fatigues of the funeral. I started away at once and with such hasteⒶ as I could command, for I had never seen the day that I was not afraid of a ghost or would stay where one was if there was another place convenient.Ⓐ But I was stopped by a word, in a voice which I knew and which was musicⒶ to my ears—

“Come back! I am alive again, it is not a ghost.”

I returned, but I was not comfortable,Ⓐ for I could not at once realizeⒶ that he was really and solidly alive again, although I knew he was, for the fact was plain enough, the cat could have recognized it. As indeed the cat did; he came loafing in, waving his tail in greeting and satisfaction,Ⓐ and when he saw 44 he roached his back and inflated his tail and dropped a pious word and started away on urgent business; but 44 laughed, and called him back and explained to him in the cat language, and stroked him and petted him and sent him away to the other animals with the news; and in a minute here they came, padding and pattering from all directions, and they piled themselves all over him in their joy, nearly hiding him from sight, and all talking at once, each in his own tongue, and 44 answering in the language of each; and finally he fed them

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liberally with all sorts of palatableⒶ things from my cupboard (where there hadn't been a thing before), and sent them away convinced and happy.

By this time my tremors were gone and I was at rest, there was nothing in my mind or heart but thankfulness to have him back again, except wonder as to how it could be, and whether he had really been dead or had only seemed to perish in a magic-show and illusion; but he answered the thought while fetching a hot supper from my empty cupboard, saying—

“It wasn't an illusion, I died;” and added indifferently,Ⓐ “it is nothing, I have done itⒶ many a time!”

It was a hardy statement, and I did not strain myself with trying to believe it, but of course I did not say so. His supper was beyond praise for toothsomenessⒶ, but I was not acquainted with any of the dishes. He said they were all foreign, from various corners of the globe. An amazing thing, I thought, yet it seemed to meⒶ it must be true. There was a very rare-done bird that was peculiarly heavenly; it seemed to be a kind of duck.

“Canvas-back,” he said, “hot from America!”

“What is America?”

“It's a country.”

“A country?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Oh, away off. It hasn't been discovered yet. Not quite. Next fall.”

“Have you—”

“Been there? Yes; in the past, in the present, in the future. You should see it four or five centuries from now! This duck is of that period. How do you like the DuplicatesⒶ?”

It was his common way, the way of a boy, and most provoking: careless, capricious, unstable, never sticking to a subject, forever flitting and sampling here and there and yonder, like a bee; always, just as he was on the point of becoming interesting, he changed the subject. I was annoyed, but concealed it as well as I could, and answered—

“Oh, well, they are well enough, but they are not popular. They

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won't join the union, they work for nothing, the men resent their intrusion. There you have the situation: the men dislike them, and they are bitter upon the magician for sending them.”

It seemed to give 44 an evil delight. He rubbed his hands vigorously together, and said—

“They were a good idea, the Duplicates; judiciously handled, they will make a lot of trouble! Do you know, those creatures are not uninteresting, all things considered, for they are not real persons.”

“Heavens, what are they, then!”

“I will explain. Move up to the fire.”

We left the table and its savory wreckage, and took comfortable seats, each at his own customary side of the fire, which blazed up brisklyⒶ now, as if in a voluntary welcome of us. Then 44 reached up and took from the mantelpiece some things which I had not noticed there before: a slender reed stem with a small red-clay cup at the end of it, and a dry and dark-colored leaf, of a breed unknown to me. Chatting along,—I watching curiously—he crushed the crisp leaf in his palm, and filled that little cup with it; then he put the stem in his mouth and touched the cup with his finger, which instantly set fire to the vegetable matter and sent up a column of smokeⒶ and I divedⒶ under the bed, thinking something might happen. But nothing did, and so upon persuasion I returned to my chair but moved it a little further, for 44 was tiltingⒶ his head far back and shooting ring after ring of blue smokeⒶ toward the ceiling—delicate gauzyⒶ revolving circlets, beautiful to see; and always each new ring took enlargement and 44 fired the next one through it with a good aim and happy art, and he did seem to enjoy it so; but not I, for I believed his entrails were on fire, and could perhaps explode and hurt some one, and most likely the wrong person,Ⓐ just as happens at riots and such things.

But nothing occurred, and I grew partially reconciled to the conditions, although the odor of the smoke was nauseating and a little difficult to stand. It seemed strange that he could endure it, and stranger still that he should seem to enjoy it. I turned the mystery over in my mind and concluded it was most likely a pagan

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religious service, and therefore I tookⒶ my cap off, not in reverence but as a matter of discretion. But he said—

“No, it is only a vice, merely a vice,Ⓐ but not a religious one. It originated in Mexico.”

“What is Mexico?”

“It's a country.”

“A country?”

“Yes.”

“Where is it?”

“Away off. It hasn't been discovered yet.”

“Have you ever—”

“Been there? Yes, many times. In the past, in the present, and in the future. No, the Duplicates are not real, they are fictions. I will explain about them.”

I sighed, but said nothing. He was always disappointing; I wanted to hear about Mexico.Ⓐ

“The way of it is this,” he said. “You know, of course, that you are not one person, but two. One is your Workaday-Self,ⒶⒶ and 'tends to business, the other is your Dream-Self, and has no responsibilities, and cares only for romance and excursions and adventure. It sleeps when your other self is awake; when your other self sleeps, your Dream-Self has full control, and does as it pleases. It has far more imagination than has the Workaday-Self,Ⓐ therefore its pains and pleasures are far more real and intense than are those of the other self, and its adventures correspondingly picturesque and extraordinary. As a rule, when a party of Dream-Selves—whetherⒶ comrades or strangers—get together and flit abroad in the globe, they have a tremendous time. But you understand, they have no substance, they are only spirits. The Workaday-Self,Ⓐ has a harder lot and a duller time;Ⓐ it can't get away from the flesh, and is clogged and hindered by it; and also by the low grade of its own imagination.”

“But 44, these Duplicates are solid enough!”

“So they are, apparently, but it is only fictitious flesh and bone, put upon them by the magician and me. We pulledⒶ them out of the OriginalsⒶ and gave them this independent life.”

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“Why, 44,Ⓐ they fight and bleed, like anybody!”

“Yes, and they feel, too. It is not a bad job, in the solidifying line, I've never seen better flesh put together by enchantment; but no matter, it is a pretty airy fabric, and ifⒶ we should remove the spell they would vanish like blowing out a candle. Ah, they are a capable lot, with their measureless imaginations! If they imagine there is a mystic clog upon them and it takes them a couple of hours to set a couple of lines, that is what happens; but on the contrary, if they imagine it takes them but half a second to set a whole galleyful of matter, that is what happens! A dandy lot is that handful of Duplicates, and the easy match of a thousand real printers! Handled judiciously, they'll make plenty of trouble.”

“But why should you want them to make trouble, 44?”

“Oh, merely to build up the magician's reputation. If they once get their imaginations started . . . . . oh, the consuming intensity and effectiveness of it!” He pondered a while, then said, indolently, “Those Originals are in love with these women and are not making any headway; now then, if we arrange it so that the Duplicates . . . . . lad, it's getting late—for you; time does not exist, for me. August, that is a nice table-service—you may have it. Good-night!” and he vanished.

It was heavy silver, and ornate, and on one great piece was engraved “America Cup;” on the others were chased these words, which had no meaning for me: “New York Yacht Club, 1903.”

I sighed, and said to myself, “It may be that he is not honest.” After some days I obliterated the words and dates, and sold the service at a good price.

Day after day went by, and Father AdolfⒶ was a busy man, for he was the head of the Commission charged with trying and punishing the magician; but he had no luck, he could come upon no trace of the necromancer. He was disappointed and exasperated,

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and he swore hard and drank hard, but nothing came of it, he made no progress in his hunt. So, as a vent for his wrath he turned upon the poor Duplicates, declaring them to be evil spirits, wandering devils, and condemned them to the stake on his own arbitrary authority, but 44 told me he (44,) wouldn'tⒶ allow them to be hurt, they being useful in the building up of the magician's reputation. Whether 44 was really their protector or not, no matter, they certainly had protection, for every time Father AdolfⒶ chainedⒶ them to the stake they vanished and left the stake empty before the fire could be applied, and straightway they would be found at work in the shop and not in any way frightened or disturbed. After several failures Father AdolfⒶ gave it up in a rageⒶ, for he was becoming ridiculous and a butt for everybody's private laughter. To cover his chagrin he pretended that he had not really tried to burn them, he only wanted to scare them; and said heⒶ was only postponing the roasting, and that it would take place presently, when he should find that the right time had come. But not many believed him, and Doangivadam, to show how little he cared for Adolf's pretensions, took out a fire insurance policy upon his Duplicate. It was an impudent thing to do, and most irreverent, and made Father AdolfⒶ very angry, but he pretended that he did not mind it.

As 44 had expected, the Duplicates fell to making love to the young women, and in such strenuous fashion that they soon cut out the OriginalsⒶ and left them out in the cold; which made bad blood, and constant quarrels and fights resulted. Soon the castle was no better than a lunatic asylum. It was a cat-and-dog's life all around, but there was no helping it. The master loved peace, and he tried his best to reconcile the parties and make them friendly to each other, but it was not possible, the brawling and fighting went on in spite of all he could do. Forty-Four and I went about, visible to each other but to no one else, and we witnessed these affrays, and 44 enjoyed them and was perfectly charmed with them. Well, he had his own tastes. I was not always invisible, of course, for that would have caused remark; I showed up often enough to prevent that.

Whenever I thought I saw a good opportunity I tried to interest 44 in the life eternal, but the innate frivolity of his nature contin-

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ually defeated my efforts, he could not seem to care for anything but building up the magician's reputation. He said he was interested in that, and in one other thing,Ⓐ the human race. He had nettled me more than once by seemingⒶ to speak slightingly of the human race. Finally, one day, being annoyed once more by some such remark, I said, acidly—

“You don't seem to think much of the human race; it's a pity you have to belong to it.”

He looked a moment or twoⒶ upon me, apparently in gentle wonder, thenⒶ answered—

“What makes you think I belong to it?”

The bland audacity of it so mixed my emotions that it was a question which would get first expression, anger or mirth; but mirth got precedence, and I laughed. Expecting him to laugh, too, in response; but he did not. He looked a little hurt at my levity, and said, as in mild reproach—

“I think the human race is well enough, in its way,Ⓐ all things considered, but surely, August, I have never intimated that I belonged to it. Reflect. Now have I?”

It was difficult to know what to say; I seemed to be a little stunned. Presently I said, wonderingly—

“It makes me dizzy; I don't quite know where I am; it is as if I had had a knock on the head. I have hadⒶ no such confusing and bewildering and catastrophicalⒶ experience as this before. It is a new and strange and fearful idea: a person who is a person and yet not a human being. I cannot grasp it, I do not know how it can be, I have never dreamed of so tremendous a thing, so amazing a thing! Since you are not a human being, what are you?”

“Ah,” he said, “now we have arrived at a pointⒶ where words are useless; words cannot even convey human thought capably, and they can do nothing at all with thoughts whose realmⒶ and orbit are outside the human solar system, so to speak. I will use the language of my country, where words are not known. During half a moment my spirit shall speak to yours and tell you something about me. Not much, for it is not much of meⒶ that you would be able to understand, with your limited human mentality.”

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While he was speaking, my head was illuminated by a single sudden flash as of lightning, and I recognised that it had conveyed to me some knowledge of him;Ⓐ enough to fill me with aweⒶ . Envy, too—I do not mind confessing it. He continued—

“Now then, things which have puzzled you heretofore are not a mystery to you any more, for you are now aware that there is nothing I cannot do—and lay it on the magician and increase his reputation; andⒶ you are alsoⒶ now aware that the difference between a human being and me is as theⒶ difference between a drop of water and the sea, a rushlight and the sun, the difference between the infinitely trivial and the infinitely sublime! I say—we'll be comrades, and have scandalous good timesⒶ!” and he slapped me on the shoulder, and his face was all alight with good-fellowship.

I said I was in awe of him, and was more moved to pay him reverence than to—

“Reverence!” he mocked; “put it away; the sun doesn't care for the rushlight's reverence, put it away. Come, we'll be boys together and comrades! Is itⒶ agreed?”

I saidⒶ I was too much wounded, just nowⒶ, to have any heart in levities, I must wait a little and get somewhat over this hurt; that I would rather beseech and persuade him to put all light things aside for a season and seriously and thoughtfully study my unjustly disesteemed race, whereby I was sure he would presently come to estimate it at its right and true value, and worthy of the sublime rank it had always held, undisputed, as the noblest work of God.

He was evidently touched, and said he was willing, and would do according to my desire, putting light things aside and taking up this small study in all heartiness and candor.

I was deeply pleased; so pleased that I would not allow his thoughtlessⒶ characterization of it as a “small” study to greatly mar my pleasure; and to this end admonishing myself to remember that he was speaking a foreign language and must not be expected to perceive nice distinctions in the values of words. He sat musing a little while, then he said in his kindest and thoughtfulest manner—

“I am sure I can say with truth that I have no prejudices against the human race or other bugs, and no aversions, no malignities. I

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have known the race a long time, and out of my heart I can say that I have always felt more sorry for it than ashamed of it.”

He said it with the gratified look of a person who has uttered a graceful and flattering thing. By God, I think he expected thanks! He did not get them; I said not a word. That made a pause, and was a little awkward for him for the moment; then he went on—

“I have often visited this world—often. It shows that I felt an interest in this race; it is proof, proof absolute, that I felt an interest in it.” He paused, then looked up with one of those inane self-approving smiles on his face that are so trying, and added, “there is nothing just like it in any other world, it is a race by itself, and in many ways amusing.”

He evidently thought he had said another handsome thing; he had the satisfied look of a person who thought he was oozing compliments at every pore. I retorted, with bitter sarcasm—I couldn't help it—

“As ‘amusing’ as a basket of monkeys, no doubt!”

It clean failed! He didn't know it was sarcasm.

“Yes,”Ⓐ he said, serenely, “as amusing as those—and even more so, it may be claimed; for monkeys, in their mental and moral freaks show not so great variety, and therefore are the less entertaining.”

This was too much. I asked, coldly—

But he was gone.ⒶⒶ

A week passed.

Meantime, where was he? what was become of him? I had gone often to his room, but had alwaysⒶ foundⒶ it vacant. I was missing him sorely. Ah, he was so interesting! there was none that could approach him for that. And there could not be a more engaging mystery than he. He was always doing and saying strange and curious things, and then leaving them but half explained or not explained at all. Who was he? what was he? where was he from? I wished I knew. Could he be converted? could he be saved? Ah, if only this could happen, and I be in some humble way a helper toward it!

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While I was thus cogitating about him, he appeared—gay, of course, and even more gaily clad than he was that day that the magician burnt him. He said he had been “home.” I pricked up my ears hopefully, but was disappointed: with that mere touch he left the subject, just as if becauseⒶ it had no interest for him it couldn'tⒶ have any for others. A chuckle-headed idea, certainly.Ⓐ He was handy about disparagingⒶ other people's reasoning powers, but it never seemed to occur to him to look nearer home. He smacked me on the thigh and said,ⒶⒶ

“Come, you need an outing, you've been shut up here quite long enough. I'll do the handsome thing by you, now—I'll show you something creditable to your race.”

That pleased me, and I said so; and said it was very kind and courteous of him to find something to its credit, and be good enough to mention it.

“Oh, yes,” he said, lightly, and paying no attention to my sarcasm, “I'll show you a really creditable thing. At the same time I'll have to show you something discreditable, too, but that's nothing—that's merely human, you know. Make yourself invisible.”

I did soⒶ, and he did the like. We were presently floating away, high in the air, over the frosty fields and hills.

“We shall go to a small town fifty miles removed,” he said, “Thirty years ago Father Adolf was priest there, and was thirty years old. Johann Brinker, twenty years old, resided there, with his widowed mother and his four sisters—three younger than himself, and one a couple of years older, and marriageable. He was a rising young artist. Indeed one might say that he had already risen, for he had exhibited a picture in Vienna which had brought him great praise, and made him at once a celebrity. The family had been very poor, but now his pictures were wanted, and he sold all of his little stock at fine prices, and took orders for as many more as he could paint in two or three years. It was a happy family! and was suddenly become courted, caressed and—envied, of course, for that is human. To be envied is the human being's chiefest joy.Ⓐ

“Then a thing happened. On a winter's morning Johann was skating, when he heard a choking cry for help, and saw that a man had broken through the ice and was struggling; he flew to the spot,

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and recognised Father Adolf, who was becomingⒶ exhausted by the cold and by his unwise strugglings, for he was not a swimmer. There was but one way to do, in the circumstances, and that was, to plunge in and keep the priest's head up until further help should come—which was on the way. Both men were quickly rescued by the people. Within the hour Father Adolf was as good as new, but it was not so with Johann.Ⓐ He had been perspiring freely, from energetic skating, and the icy water had consequences for him. Here is his small house, we will go in and see him.”

We stood in the bedroom and looked about us. An elderly woman with a profoundly melancholy face sat at the fireside with her hands folded in her lap, and her head bowed, as with age-long weariness—that pathetic attitude which says so much! Without audible words the spirit of 44 explained to me—

“The marriageable sister. There was no marriage.”

On a bed, half reclining and propped with pillows and swathed in wraps was a grizzled man of apparentlyⒶ great age, with hollow cheeks, and with features drawn by immemorial pains; and now and then he stirred a little, and softly moaned—whereatⒶ a faint spasm flitted across the sister's face, and it was as if that moan had carried a pain to her heart. The spirit of 44 breathed upon me again:

“Since that day it has been like this—thirty years!—”

“My God!”

“It is true. Thirty years. He has his wits—the worse for him—the cruelty of it! He cannot speak, he cannot hear, he cannot see, he is wholly helpless, the half of him is paralysed, the other half is but a house of entertainment for bodily miseries. At risk of his life he saved a fellow-being. It has cost him ten thousand deaths!”Ⓐ

Another sad-faced woman entered. She brought a bowl of gruel with her, and she fed it to the man with a spoon, the other woman helping.

“August, the four sisters have stood watches over this bed day and night for thirty years, ministering to this poor wreck. Marriage, and homes and families of their own was not for them; they gave up all their hopeful young dreams and suffered the ruin of their lives, in orderⒶ to ameliorate as well as they might the miseries of

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their brotherⒶ.ⒶⒶ They laid him upon this bedⒶ in the bright morning of his youth and in the golden glory of his new-born fame—and look at him now! His mother's heart broke, and she went mad. Add up the sum: oneⒶ broken heart, fiveⒶ blighted and blasted young lives. All this it costs to save a priestⒶ for a life-longⒶ career of vice and all forms of shameless rascality! Come, come, let us go, before these enticing rewards for well-doing unbalance my judgment and persuade me to become a human beingⒶ myself!”

In our flight homeward I was depressed and silent, there was a heavy weight upon my spirit; then presently came a slight uplift and a glimmer of cheer, and I said—Ⓐ

“Those poor people will be richly requited for all they have sacrificed and suffered.”

“Oh, perhaps,” he said, indifferently.

“It is my belief,” I retorted. “And certainly a large mercy has been shown the poor mother, in granting her a blessed mental oblivion and thus emancipating her from miseries which the others, being younger, were better able to bear.”

“The madness was a mercy, you think?”

“With the broken heart, yes; for without doubt death resulted quickly and she was at rest from her troubles.”

A faint spiritual cackle fell upon my ear. After a moment 44 said—

“At dawn in the morning I will show you something.”

I spent a wearying and troubled night, for in my dreams I was a memberⒶ of that ruined family and suffering with it through a dragging long stretch of years; and the infamous priest whose life had been saved at cost of these pains and sorrowsⒶ seemed always present and drunk and mocking. At last I woke. In the dimmest of cold gray dawns I made out a figure sitting by my bed—an old and white-headed man in the coarse dress of a peasant.

“Ah,” I said, “who are you, good man?”

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It was 44. He said, in a wheezy old voice, that he was merely showing himself to me so that I would recognize him when I saw him later.Ⓐ Then he disappeared, and I did the same, by his order. Soon we were sailing over the village in the frosty air, and presently we came to earth in an open spaceⒶ behind the monastery. It was a solitude, except that a thinly and rustily clad old woman was there, sitting on the frozen ground and fastened to a post by a chain around her waist. She could hardly hold her head up for drowsiness and the chill in her bones. A pitiful spectacle she was, in the vague dawn and the stillness, with the faint winds whispering around her and the powdery snow-whorls frisking and playing and chasing each other over the black ground. Forty-Four made himself visible, and stood by, looking down upon her. She raised her old head wearily, and when she saw that it was a kindly face that was before her she said appealingly—Ⓐ

“Have pity on me—I am so tired and so cold, and the night has been so long, so long! light the fire and put me out of my misery!”Ⓐ

“Ah, poor soul, I am not the executioner, but tell me if I can serve you, and I will.”

She pointed to a pile of fagots, and said,Ⓐ

“They are for me, a few can be spared to warm me, they will not be missed, there will be enough left to burn me with, oh, much more than enough, for this old body is sapless and dry. Be good to me!”

“You shall have your wish,” said 44, and placed a fagot before her and lit it with a touch of his finger.

The flame flashed crackling up, and the woman stretched her lean hands over it, and out of her eyes she looked the gratitude that was too deep for words. It was weirdⒶ and patheticⒶ to see her getting comfort and happiness out of that fuel that had been provided to inflict upon her an awful death! Presently she looked up wistfully and said—

“You are good to me, you are veryⒶ good to me, and I have no friends. I am not bad—you must not think I am bad, I am only poor and old, and smitten in my wits these many many years. They think I am a witch; it is the priest, Adolf, that caught me, and it is

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he that has condemned me. But I amⒶ not that—no, God forbid! You do not believe I am a witch?—say you do not believe that of me.”

“Indeed I do not.”

“Thank you for that kind word! . . . . . How long it is that I have wandered homeless—oh, many years, many! . . . . Once I had a home—I do not know where it was; and four sweet girls and a son—how dear they were! The name . . . . .Ⓐ the name . . . . . but I have forgotten the name. All dead, now, poor things, these many years.Ⓐ . . . . . If you could have seen my son! ah, so good he was, and a painter . . . . oh, such pictures he painted! . . . . Once he saved a man's life . . . . . or it could have been a woman's . . . . . .a person drowning in the ice—”

She lost her way in a tangle of vague memories, and fell to nodding her head and mumbling and muttering to herself, and I whispered anxiously in the ear of 44—

“You will save her? You will get the word to the priest, and when he knows who she is he will set her free and we will restore her to her family, God be praised!”

“No,” answered 44.

“No? Why?”

“She was appointed from the beginning of timeⒶ to die at the stake this day.”

“How do you know?”

He made no reply. I waited a moment, in growing distress, then said—

“At least I will speak! I will tell her story.Ⓐ I will make myself visible, and I—”

“It is not so written,” he said; “that which is not foreordained will not happen.”

He was bringing a fresh fagot. A burly man suddenlyⒶ appeared, from the monastery, and ran toward himⒶ and struck the fagot from his hand, saying roughly—

“You meddling old fool, mind what you are about! Pick it up and carry it back.”

“And if I don't—what then?”

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In his fury at being so addressed by so mean and humble a person the man struck a blow at 44's jaw with his formidable fist, but 44 caught the fist in his hand and crushed it; it was sickening to hear the bones crunch. The man staggered away, groaning and cursing, and 44 picked up the fagot and renewed the old woman's fire with it. I whispered—Ⓐ

“Quick—disappear, and let us get away from here; that man will soon—”

“Yes, I know,” said 44, “he is summoning his underlings; they will arrest me.”

“Then come—come along!”

“What good would it do?Ⓐ It is written. What is written must happen. But it is of no consequence, nothing will come of it.”

They came running—half a dozen—and seizⒶed him and dragged him away, cuffing him with fists and beating him withⒶ sticks till he was red with his own blood. I followed, of course, but I was merely a substanceless spirit, and there was nothing that I could do in his defence. They chained him in a dim chamber under the monastery and locked the doors andⒶ departed, promising him further attentions when they should be through with burning the witch. I was troubled beyond measure, but he was not. He said he would use this opportunity to increase the magician's reputation: he would spread the report that the aged hand-crusher was the magician in disguise.

“They will find nothing here but the prisoner's clothes when they come,” he said, “then they will believe.”

He vanishedⒶ out of the clothes, and they slumped down in a pile. He could certainly do some wonderful things, feather-headed and frivolous as he was! ThereⒶ was no way of accounting for 44. We soared out through the thick walls as if they had been made of air, and followed a procession of chanting monks to the place of the burning. People were gathering, and soon they came flocking in crowds, men, women, youthsⒶ, maidens; and there were even children in arms.

There was a half hour of preparation: a rope ring was widelyⒶ drawn around the stake to keep the crowd at a distance; within this a platform was placed for the use of the preacher—Adolf. When all

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was ready he came, imposinglyⒶ attended, and was escorted with proper solemnity and ceremony to this pulpit. He began his sermon at once and with business-like energy. He was very bitter upon witches, “familiars of the Fiend, enemies of God, abandoned of the angels, foredoomed to hell;” and in closing he denounced this present one unsparingly, and forbade any to pity her.

It was all lost upon the prisoner; she was warm, she was comfortable, she was worn out with fatigue and sorrow andⒶ privation, her gray head was bowed upon her breast, she was asleep. The executioners moved forward and raised her upon her feet and drew her chains tight, around her breast. She looked drowsily around upon the people while the fagots were being piled, then her head drooped again, and again she slept.

The fire was applied and the executioners stepped aside, their mission accomplished. A hush spread everywhere: there was no movement, there was not a sound, the massed people gazed, with lips apart and hardly breathing, their faces petrified in a common expression, partly of pity, mainly of horror. During more than a minute that strange and impressive absence of motion and movement continued, then it was broken in a way to make any being with a heart in his breast shudder—a man lifted his little child and sat her upon his shoulder, that she might see the better!

The blue smoke curled up about the slumberer and trailed away upon the chilly air; a red glow began to show at the base of the fagotsⒶ; this increased in size and intensity and a sharp crackling sound broke upon the stillness; suddenly a sheetⒶ of flame burst upward and swept the face of the sleeper, setting her hair on fire, she uttered an agonizing shriek which was answered by a horrified groan from the crowd, then she cried out “Thou art merciful and good to Thy sinful servant, blessed be Thy holy NameⒶ—sweet Jesus receive my spirit!”

Then the flames swallowed her up and hid her from sight. Adolf stood sternly gazing upon his work. There was now a sudden movement upon the outskirts of the crowd, and a monk came plowing his way through and delivered a message to the priest—Ⓐevidently a pleasant one to the receiver of it,Ⓐ if signs go for anything. AdolfⒶ cried out—

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“Remain, everybody! It is reported to me that that arch malignant the magicianⒶ, that son of Satan, is caught, and lies a chained prisoner under the monastery, disguised as an aged peasant. He is already condemned to the flames, no preliminaries are needed, his time is come. Cast the witch's ashes to the winds, clear the stake! Go—you, and you, and you—bring the sorcerer!”

The crowd woke up! this was a show to their taste. Five minutes passed—ten. What might the matter be? Adolf was growing fiercely impatient. Then the messengers returned, crestfallen. They said the magician was gone—gone, through the bolted doors and the massive walls; nothing was left of him but his peasant clothes! And they held them up for all to see.

The crowd stood amazed, wondering, speechless—and disappointed. Adolf began to storm and curse. Forty-Four whispered—

“The opportunity is come. I will personate the magician and make some more reputation for him. Oh, just watch meⒶ raise the limit!Ⓐ”

So the next moment there was a commotion in the midst of the crowd, which fell apart in terror exposing to view the supposedⒶ magicianⒶ in his glittering oriental robes; and his face was white with fright, and he was trying to escape. But there was no escape for him, for there was one there whose boast it was that he feared neither Satan nor his servants—this being Adolf the admired. Others fell back cowed, but not he; he plunged after the sorcerer, he chased him, gained upon him, shouted, “Yield—in His NameⒶ I command!”

An awful summons! Under the blasting might of it the spurious magician reeled and fell as if he had been smitten by a bolt from the sky. I grieved for him with all my heart and in the deepest sincerity, and yet I rejoiced for that at last he had learned the power of that Name at which he had so often and so recklessly scoffed. And all too late, too late, forever and ever too late—ah, why had he not listened to me!

There were no cowards there, now! Everybody was brave, everybody was eager to help drag the victim to the stake, they swarmed about him like raging wolves; they jerked him this way and that, they beat him and reviled him, they cuffed him and kicked him, he

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wailing, sobbing, beggingⒶ for pity, the conquering priest exulting, scoffing, boasting, laughing. Briskly they bound him to the stake and piled the fagots around himⒶ and applied the fire; and there the forlorn creature stood weeping and sniffling and pleadingⒶ in his fantastic robes, a sorry contrast to that poor humble Christian who but a little while before had faced death there so bravely. Adolf lifted his hand and pronounced with impressive solemnity the words—

“Depart, damned soul, to the regions of eternal woe!”

Whereat the weeping magician laughed sardonicallyⒶ in his face and vanished away, leaving his robes empty and hanging collapsed in the chains! There was a whisper at my ear—

“Come, August, let us to breakfast and leave these animalsⒶ to gape and stare while Adolf explains to them the unexplainable—a job just in his lineⒶ. By the time I have finished with the sorcerer he will have a dandyⒶ reputation—don't you think?”Ⓐ

So all his pretence of being struck down by the Name was a blasphemous jest. And I had taken it so seriously, so confidingly, innocently, exultantly. I was ashamed. Ashamed of him, ashamed of myself. Oh, manifestly nothing was serious to him, levity was the blood and marrow of him, death was a joke; his ghastly fright,Ⓐ his moving tears, his frenzied supplications—by God, it was all just coarse and vulgar horse-play! The only thing he was capable of being interested in, was his damned magician's reputation! I was too disgusted to talk, I answered him nothing, but left him to chatter over his degraded performance unobstructed, and rehearse it and chuckle over it and glorify it up to his taste.

It was in my room. He brought it—the breakfast—dish after dish, smoking hot, from my empty cupboard, and briskly set the table, talking all the while—ah, yes, and pleasantly, fascinatingly, winningly; and not about that so-recent episode, but about these fragrant refreshments and the far countries he had summonedⒶ them

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from—Cathay,Ⓐ India, and everywhere; and as I was famishing, this talk was pleasingⒶ, indeed captivating, and under its influence my sour mood presently passed from me. Yes, and it was healing to my bruisedⒶ spirit to look upon the rich and costly table-service—quaint of shape and pattern, delicate, ornate, exquisite, beautiful!—and presently quite likely to be mine, you see.

“Hot corn-poneⒶ from Arkansas—split it, butter it, close your eyes and enjoy! Fried spring chicken—milk-and-flour gravy—from Alabama. Try it, and grieve for the angels, for they have it not! Cream-smothered strawberries, with the prairie-dew still on them —let them melt in your mouth, and don't try to say what you feel! Coffee from ViennaⒶ—fluffed cream—twoⒶ pellets of saccharinⒶⒶ—drink, and have compassion for the Olympian gods that know only nectar!”

I ate, I drank, I reveled in these alien wonders; truly I was in Paradise!

“It is intoxication,” I said, “it is delirium!”

“It's a jag!” he responded.

I inquired about some of the refreshmentsⒶ that had outlandishⒶ namesⒶ. Again that weirdⒶ detail:Ⓐ they were non-existent as yet, they were products of the unborn future! Understand it? How could I? Nobody could. The mere trying muddled the head. And yet it was a pleasure to turn those curious names over on the tongue and taste them: Corn-poneⒶ! Arkansas! Alabama! Prairie! Coffee! Saccharin! Forty-Four answered my thought with a stingy word of explanation—

“Corn-pone is made from maize. Maize is known only in America. America is not discovered yet. Arkansas and Alabama will be States, and will get their names two or three centuries hence. Prairie—a future French-AmericanⒶ term for a meadow like an ocean. Coffee: they have it in the Orient, they will have it here in Austria two centuries from now. Saccharin—concentrated sugar, 500 to 1; as it were, the sweetness of five hundred pretty maids concentrated in a young fellow's sweetheart. Saccharin is not due yet for nearly four hundred years; I am furnishing you several advance-privileges, you see.”

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“Tell me a little, little more, 44—pleaseⒶ! You starve me so! and I am so hungry to know how you find out these strange marvels, these impossible things.”

He reflected a while, then he said he was in a mood to enlighten me, and would like to do it, but did not know how to go about it, because of my mental limitations and the general meanness and poverty of my construction and qualities. He said this in a most casual and taken-for-granted way, just as an archbishop might say it to a cat, never suspecting that the cat could have any feelings about it or take a different view of the matter. My face flushed, and I said with dignity and a touch of heat—Ⓐ

“I must remind you that I am made in the image of God.”

“Yes,” he said carelessly, but did not seem greatly impressed by it, certainly not crushed, not overpowered. I was more indignant than ever, but remained mute, coldly rebuking him by my silence. But it was wastedⒶ on him; he did not see it, he was thinking. Presently he said—

“It is difficult. Perhaps impossible, unless I should make you over again.” He glanced up with a yearningly explanatory and apologetic look in his eyes, and added, “For you are an animal, you see—you understand that?”

I could have slapped him for it, but I austerely held my peace, and answered with cutting indifference—

“Quite so. It happens to happen that all of us are that.”

Of course I was including him, but it wasⒶ only another waste—he didn't perceive the inclusion. He said, as one might whose way has been cleared of an embarrassing obstruction—

“Yes, that is just the trouble! It makes it ever so difficult. With my race it is different; we have no limits of any kind, we comprehend all things. You see, for your race there is such a thing as time—you cut it up and measure it; to your race there is a past, a present and a future—out of one and the same thing you make three; and to your race there is alsoⒶ such a thing as distance—and hang it, you measure that, too! . . . . . Let me see: if I could only . . . . if I . . . . oh, no, it is of no use—there is no such thing as enlightening that kind of a mind!” He turned upon me despair-

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ingly , pathetically, adding, “If it only had some capacity, some depth, or breadth, or—or—but you see it doesn't hold anything; one cannot pour the starred and shoreless expanses of the universe into a jug!”

I made no reply; I sat in frozen and insulted silence; I would not have said a word to save his life. But again he was not aware of what was happening—he was thinking. Presently he said—

“Well, it is so difficult! If I only had a starting-point, a basis to proceed from—but I can't find any. If—look here: can't you extinguish time? can't you comprehend eternity? can't you conceive of a thing like that—a thing with no beginning—a thing that always was? Try it!”

“Don't!Ⓐ I've tried it a hundred times,” I said, “It makes my brain whirl just to think of it!”

He was in despair again.

“Dear me—to think that there can be an ostensible Mind that cannot conceive of so simple a trifle as that! . . . . Look here, August: there are really no divisions of time—none at all. The past is always present when I want it—the real past, not an image of it; I can summon it, and there it is. The same with the future: I can summon it out of the unborn ages, and there it is, before my eyes, alive and real, not a fancy, an image, a creation of the imagination. Ah, these troublesome limitations of yours!—they hamper me. Your race cannot even conceive of something being made out of nothing—I am aware of it, your learned men and philosophers are always confessing it. They say there had to be something to start with—meaning a solid, a substance—to build the worldⒶ out of. Man, it is perfectly simple—it was built out of thought. Can'tⒶ you comprehend that?”

“No, I can't! Thought! There is no substance to thought; then how is a material thing going to be constructed out of it?”

“But August, I don't mean your kind of thought, I mean my kind, and the kind that the gods exercise.”

“Come, what is the difference? Isn't thought just thought, and all said?”

“No. A man originates nothing in his head, he merely observes

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exteriorⒶ things, and combines them in his head—puts several observed things together and draws a conclusion. His mind is merely a machine, that is all—an automatic one, and he has no control over it; it cannot conceive of a new thing, an original thing, it can only gather material from the outside and combine it into new forms and patterns. But it alwaysⒶ has to have the materials from the outsideⒶ, for it can't make them itself. That is to say, a man's mind cannot create—a god's can, and my race can. That is the difference.Ⓐ We need no contributedⒶ materials, we create them—out of thought. All things that exist were made out of thought—and out of nothing else.”

ItⒶ seemed to me charitable, also polite, to take him at his word and not require proof, and I said so. He was not offended. He only said—

“Your automatic mind has performed its function—its sole function—and without help from you. That is to say, it has listened, it has observed, it has put this and that together, and drawn a conclusion—the conclusion that my statement was a doubtful one. It is now privately beginning to wish for a test. Is that true?”Ⓐ

“Well, yes,” I said, “I won'tⒶ deny it, though for courtesy's sake I would have concealed it if I could have had my way.”

“Your mind is automatically suggesting that I offer a specificⒶ proof—that I create a dozen gold coins out of nothing; that is to say, out of thought. Open your hand—they are there.”

And so they were!Ⓐ I wondered; and yet I wasⒶ not very greatly astonished, for in my private heart I judged—and not for the first time—that he was using magic learned from the magician, and that he had no gifts in this line that did not come from that source. But was this so? I dearly wanted to ask this question, and I started to do it. But the words refused to leave my tongue,Ⓐ and I realized that he had applied that mysterious check which had so often shut off a question which I wanted to ask. He seemed to be musing. Presently he ejaculated—

“That poor old soul!”

It gave me a pang, and brought back the stake, the flames and the death-cry; and I said—

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“It was a shame and a pity that she wasn't rescued.”

“Why a pity?”

“Why? How can you ask,Ⓐ 44?”

“What would she have gained?”

“An extension of life, for instance; is that nothing?”

“Oh, there spoke the human! HeⒶ is always pretending that the eternal bliss of heaven is such a priceless boon! Yes, and always keeping outⒶ of heaven just as long as he can! At bottom, you see, he is far from being certain about heaven.”Ⓐ

I was annoyed at my carelessness inⒶ giving him that chance. But I allowed it to stand at that, and said nothing; it could not help the matter to go into it further. Then, to get away from it I observed that there was at least one gain that the woman could have had if she had been saved: she might have entered heaven by a less cruel death.

“She isn't going there,” said 44, placidly.Ⓐ

It gave me a shock, and also it angered me, and I said with some heat—

“You seem to know a good deal about it—how do you know?”

He was not affected by my warmth, neither did he trouble to answer my question; he only said—

“The woman could have gained nothing worth considering—certainly nothing worth measuring by your curious methods. What are ten years, subtracted from ten billion years? It is the ten-thousandth part of a second—that is to say, it is nothing at all. Very well, she is in hell now, she will remain there forever. TenⒶ years subtracted from it wouldn't count. Her bodily painⒶ at the stake lasted six minutes—to save her from that would not have been worthwhile.Ⓐ That poor creatureⒶ is in hell; see for yourself!”

Before I could beg him to spare me, the red billows were sweeping by, and she was there among the lost.

The next moment the crimson sea was gone,Ⓐ with its evoker, and I was alone.Ⓐ