"It was the last act I ever did," said Madame Brandt. "I taught
Sultan--oh, he was a dear, beautiful thing--to count and add up and
guess articles taken from the audience. I was at the Hippodrome. Then
at the Nouveau Cirque at Paris; I was at St. Petersburg, Vienna,
Berlin--all over Europe with Sultan."

"And where is Sultan now?" I asked.

"He is dead. Somebody poisoned him," she replied, looking into the fire.
After a pause she continued in a low voice, singularly like the growl of
a wrathful animal, "If ever I meet that man alive it will go hard with
him."

At that moment the door opened and the servant announced:

"Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos!"

Whereupon the shortest creature that ever bore so lengthy a name, a
dwarf not more than four feet high, wearing a frock coat and bright
yellow gloves, entered the room, and crossing it at a sort of trot fell
on his knees by the side of Madame Brandt's chair.

_"Ah! Carissima, je vous vois enfin, Ach liebes Herz! Que j'ai envie de
pleurer!"_

Madame Brandt smiled, took the creature's head between her hands and
kissed his forehead. She also caressed his shoulders.

"My dear Anastasius, how good it is to see you. Where have you been this