windows of the harem. What could I do? I say to Cotterby: 'Cotterby,' says I, 'you can do anything. Suppose you take me to-morrow in the wheelbarrow which you carry up and down the rope, and then let me get out on the roof. I must see how things look up there. You can bring me back the same way the day after. Will you do it?' 'Why not?' says Cotterby, 'if you wish it particularly.' The next day the thing is done. I hide myself in the wheelbarrow. Cotterby carries me up to the roof; he turns the barrow over and there I am, on the roof, quite alone, for Cotterby had gone back immediately, so as to create no suspicion. Now you may believe it or not as you choose, gentlemen, but I assure you I felt rather peculiar in that position. How easily the head of a black guardsman might pop out through one of the openings in the roof--and then farewell to my sweet life! But there I was, caught in the trap, and I was determined not to leave again until I had a taste of the bait. While I was still considering what I had better do next, I suddenly hear the rattling of spears and of swords on the staircase which leads up to the roof. It was the Sultan himself, who wished to admire Mr. Cotterby from that elevation. I, in my terror, run up to the nearest chimney which rose out of the roof, creep into it, and--I had not time to think for a moment--down I go some twenty feet deep--and where do you think, gentlemen, I came out again? In the fire-place of the bed-room of the Sultan's first favorite. But here I must ask the pardon of all the gentlemen present if, to spare the honor of a great lady, I can only assure them that the next twenty-four hours were among the happiest which Caspar Schmenckel has ever enjoyed in this life. On the day following, Cotterby brought, as a matter of precaution, a much larger wheelbarrow, and carried me safely down again. We left Constantinople that very night, and from that moment our company was richer by one great artist, and the harem of the Sultan had lost its fairest flower."

Mr. Schmenckel looked around him triumphantly. He could well be satisfied with the impression which he had made by his stories on his audience; they sat there listening with breathless attention. At that moment a lady came running into the room; it was the same one who used to sit at the ticket office, and who attended to all the domestic affairs of the company; she whispered a few words in the director's ear, of which the company only heard one or two, which sounded like "woman--run away." The director did not seem to be pleased with the information. His face darkened perceptibly. He grumbled something about the devil and his luck, and left the table without finishing his glass--a proof that the news he had just received must have been of the utmost importance.

And the news was important, for it amounted to nothing less than that the fair flower, which Mr. Schmenckel had stolen ten years ago with so much daring and such cunning from the palace of the Lord of the Faithful, had been lost again. Alas! he had allowed her to rest ever since on his broad bosom, he had seen the tender bud of the beauteous flower unfold itself under his watchful care, and now both flower and bud had been torn away by a storm, carried off by the deeply-injured Sultan, or at least they could not be found anywhere in their chamber or in the whole house! Mamselle Adele had made the discovery as she was about to invite the gypsy to the common supper of the ladies of the company, which was laid in another room. Mamselle Adele, a lady with an abundance of black curls, the genuineness of which was strongly suspected by envious rivals, a dark face full of energy, and a voice chronically hoarse and rough, informed Mr. Schmenckel of her discovery with that gift of the gab and that dramatic power which is given to ladies who are in the habit of addressing the public from the open steps of a wooden booth. The news was soon confirmed by the result of a thorough search of the whole house, in which he himself took the lead; it fell upon him like a flash of lightning from a clear sky. The escape of the gypsy woman was to him what the death of his best lioness and her cub would have been to the owner of a menagerie. He lost in the mother and child a capital which had cost him next to nothing, and which yet promised to produce abundant interest--the ornament, the glory, the poetry of his establishment. Even Mr. John Cotterby, of Egypt, might have been replaced more easily. Flying Pigeons are rare, but after all they can be procured; but a genius with such eyes, such deep, brown eyes, with such a kindly, serious smile, that could tempt the stingiest green-grocer to lavish profusion, was not to be found again. Mr. Schmenckel would not have been a man and a director, and above all he would have had to drink, instead of so many glasses of bitter beer, as many gallons of the milk of human kindness, if he had borne such a loss with stoic repose. Mr. Schmenckel was a man, he was a director, he had been drinking beer and not milk--and Mr. Schmenckel gave himself up to fearful wrath. The first explosion fell very naturally upon the bearer of the bad news, especially as Mr. Schmenckel had had full opportunity during the many years of their intimacy to become aware of the jealous temper of this lady, as well as of her other foibles. He accused her in terms which ought t© be impossible even among the most intimate friends, of having compelled the gypsy by her intrigues to seek safety in flight. Mamselle Adele, whose temper was naturally not of the gentlest, and who found herself in this case considered guilty when she was really quite innocent, replied in a tone which betrayed her inner excitement but too distinctly. Mr. Schmenckel belonged to that class of heroic men who, in the consciousness of their superiority--especially when they have drunk deep--allow of no contradiction, and whose proud motto in decisive moments is: "Works, not words." Mamselle Adele no sooner felt the heavy hand of her master upon her cheeks than her burning heart burst forth in flames, and her tongue began to ring the alarm-bell with such loudness and shrillness that the guests inside started up from their seats and hurried to the door, apprehending that some dire calamity had taken place in the hall, where the scene between Mr. Schmenckel and Mamselle Adele was then under way.

The sight of so many uninvited and undesirable witnesses brought the director, who was always anxiously concerned for the good name of his troop, very quickly to his senses; but the poor lady, who saw her honor thus compromised before a great crowd, was exasperated beyond endurance. So far she had only threatened to let the director feel her nails; now she added the act to the threat. The highly-cultivated public of Fichtenau, as far as it had assembled at the Green Hat, were unspeakably shocked when they saw the celebrated artist, the hero of so many adventures, the master of the far-famed pyramid-climber, the robber of the Grand Sultan's own palace, in such a state of suffering. Mamselle Adele's attacks did not cease for a moment; they were even carried out with irresistible energy, force, and agility. Some wished to come to the assistance of the defeated general; others laughed and encouraged her; still others, men in blue blouses and heavy hob-nailed shoes, who were regular customers at the Green Hat with their wagons and horses, and bore no good-will to the rope-dancers, because they interfered with their accustomed comfort, spoke loud of "rabble," and "turn them out," a sentiment which in its turn displeased a few enthusiastic admirers of high art. Angry faces, threatening arms lifted high, and curses loud and many, formed a tableau, which in the twinkling of an eye was changed into another, in which even the landlord of the Green Hat, who was leaning against the kitchen door in phlegmatic composure, his pipe between his lips, could no longer distinguish any details. Dense clouds of dust half concealed and half revealed a heap of struggling men, rolling to and fro on the floor of