hot stove, where it remained without flinching till the feet were
melted off. After some years my mother had an ebony stump affixed to
it, preserving the proportions of the figure and setting it once more
erect. He was of greater endurance and of finer physical if not of
moral development than the Tin Soldier of Hans Christian Andersen. The
other ornament, less than half the Egyptian's size, and also made of
bronze, was a warrior in mediaeval armor, whose head lifted off,
showing a sharp-pointed rod the sheath of which was the body. Its use
was to pick the wicks of the oil-lamps of that epoch, and its name was
Mr. Pickwick. When afterwards I became acquainted with the world's
Mr. Pickwick, I supposed his creator had adopted the name from our
bronze warrior; but the world's Pickwick was made of stuff more
enduring than bronze; he remains, but our little warrior has vanished.

I come now to the human occupant of this chamber of marvels. I see a
tall, strong man, whose wide-domed head was covered with wavy black
hair, bushing out at the sides. It thinned somewhat over the lofty
crown and brow; the forehead was hollowed at the temple and rounded
out above, after the Moorish style of architecture. Under heavy, dark
eyebrows were eyes deep-set and full of light, marvellous in range of
expression, with black eyelashes. All seemed well with me when I met
their look. The straight, rather salient nose had a perceptible cleft
at the tip, which, I was told, was a sign of good lineage;
muddy-mettled rascals lacked it; so that I was much distressed by the
smooth, plebeian bluntness, at that time, of my own little snub. The
mouth, then unshaded by a mustache, had a slight upward turn at the
corners, indicative of vitality and good-humor; the chin rounded out
sharply convex from the lip. The round, strong column of the neck well
supported the head; my mother compared it with that of the Apollo
Belvedere, a bust of which stood in the corner of our sitting-room.