Today's Stichomancy for Hans Christian Andersen

the table lamps. With both hands on his throbbing temples he gazed at the over-turned chairs; they, as well as his aching throat, testified to his encounter having been a reality and not a fantastic dream. His glance traveled this way and that about the room and rested longest on the opposite side of the room where he had pinned the man to the wall. Wall -! Kent leaned against a tall highboy and laughed weakly, immoderately. He had pushed the man straight against the door leading into Rochester's bedroom, and not, as he had supposed, against the solid wall.

The man had been quick-witted enough to grasp the situation; his pretended weakness had caused Kent to relax his hold, a turn of

The Red Seal

and Naples was coldly white against the hills, and before us was Vesuvius with a tall and slender streamer feathering at last towards the south, and the ruins of Torre dell' Annunziata and Castellammare glittering and near."

I interrupted suddenly: "You have been to Capri, of course?"

"Only in this dream," he said, "only in this dream. All across the bay beyond Sorrento were the floating palaces of the Pleasure City moored and chained. And northward were the broad floating stages that received the aeroplanes. Aeroplanes fell out of the sky every afternoon, each bringing its thousands of pleasure-seekers from the uttermost parts of the earth to Capri and

through the multitude of prizes offered[23] under many heads, expenses also must be much increased, consider that no articles of commerce can be got more cheaply than those which people purchase in exchange for prizes. Note in the public contests (choral, equestrian, or gymnastic)[24] how small the prizes are and yet what vast expenditure of wealth and toil, and painful supervision these elicit.[25]

[23] Reading {protithemenon} with Cobet.

[24] Lit. "hippic, gymnic, and choregic contests."

[25] e.g. "in the choral dances (1) money on the part of the choragoi; (2) pains on the part of the choreutai; (3) supervising care on the part of the choro-didaskoi, and so mutatis mutandis of the

letter I have received from Pierrette. You are thought here to have taken the money of your granddaughter, and you ought to justify yourself. If you can, come at once. We may still be happy; but if delay Pierrette will be dead.

I am, with respect, your devoted servant, Jacques Brigaut.

At Monsieur Frappier's, Cabinet-maker, Grand'Rue, Provins.

Brigaut's fear was that the grandmother was dead.

Though this letter of the youth whom in her innocence she called her lover was almost enigmatical to Pierrette, she believed in it with all her virgin faith. Her heart was filled with that sensation which