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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fiddles, by F. Hopkinson Smith
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Fiddles
+       1909
+
+Author: F. Hopkinson Smith
+
+Release Date: December 3, 2007 [EBook #23698]
+Last Updated: December 20, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIDDLES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+FIDDLES
+
+By F. Hopkinson Smith
+
+1909
+
+
+This is Marny’s story, not mine. He had a hammer in his hand at the time
+and a tack between his teeth.
+
+“Going to hang Fiddles right under the old fellow’s head,” he burst out.
+“That’s where he belongs. I’d have given a ten-acre if he could have
+drawn a bead on that elk himself. Fiddles behind a .44 Winchester
+and that old buck browsing to windward”--and he nodded at the elk’s
+head--“would have made the village Mayor sit up and think. What a
+picturesque liar you are, Fiddles”--here the point of the tack
+was pressed into the plaster with Marny’s fat thumb--“and what a
+good-for-nothing, breezy, lovable vagabond”--(Bang! Bang! Hammer at play
+now)--“you could be when you tried. There!”
+
+Marny stepped back and took in the stuffed head and wide-branched
+antlers of the magnificent elk (five feet six from skull to tips) and
+the small, partly faded miniature of a young man in a student cap and
+high-collared coat.
+
+I waited and let him run on. It is never wise to interrupt Marny. He
+will lose the thread of his talk if you do, and though he starts off
+immediately on another lead, and one, perhaps equally graphic, he
+has left you suspended in mid-air so far as the tale you were getting
+interested in is concerned. Who Fiddles was and why his Honor the Mayor
+should sit up and think; why, too, the miniature of the young man--and
+he _was_ young and remarkably good-looking, as I well knew, having seen
+the picture many times before on his mantel--should now be suspended
+below the elk’s head, would come out in time if I loosened my ear-flaps
+and buttoned up my tongue, but not if I reversed the operation.
+
+“Ah, you young fraud,” he went on--the position of both head and
+miniature pleased him now--“do you remember the time I hauled you out
+from under the table when the hucksters were making a door-mat of your
+back; and the time I washed you off at the pump, and what you said
+to the gendarme, and--No, you never remembered anything. You’d
+rather sprawl out on the grass, or make eyes at Gretchen or the
+landlady--fifty, if she was a day--maybe fifty-five, and yet she fell in
+love” (this last was addressed directly to me; it had been reminiscent
+before that, fired at the ceiling, at the hangings in his sumptuous
+studio, or the fire crackling oil the hearth), “fell in love with that
+tramp--a boy of twenty-two, mind you--Ah! but what a rounder he was!
+Such a trim, well-knit figure; so light and nimble on his feet; such a
+pair of eyes in his head, leaking tears one minute and flashing hate the
+next. And his mouth! I tried, but I couldn’t paint it--nobody could--so
+I did his profile; one of those curving, seductive mouths you sometimes
+see on a man, that quivers when he smiles, the teeth gleaming between
+the moist lips.”
+
+I had lassoed a chair with my foot by this time, had dragged it nearer
+the fire, and had settled myself in another.
+
+“Funny name, though for a German,” I remarked carelessly--quite as if
+the fellow’s patronymic had already formed part of the discussion.
+
+“Had to call him something for short,” Marny retorted. “Feudels-Shimmer
+was what they called him in Rosengarten--Wilhelm Feudels-Shimmer. I
+tried all of it at first, then I bit off the Shimmer, and then the
+Wilhelm, and ran him along on Feudels for a while, then it got down to
+Fuddles, and at last to Fiddles, and there it stuck. Just fitted him,
+too. All he wanted was a bow, and I furnished that--enough of the
+devil’s resin to set him going--and out would roll jigs, lullabys,
+fandangoes, serenades--anything you wanted: anything to which his mood
+tempted him.”
+
+Marny had settled into his chair now, and had stretched his fat legs
+toward the blaze, his middle distance completely filling the space
+between the arms. He had pushed himself over many a ledge with this same
+pair of legs and on this same rotundity, his hand on his Winchester,
+before his first ball crashed through the shoulder of the big elk whose
+glass eyes were now looking down upon Fiddles and ourselves--and he
+would do it again on another big-horn when the season opened. You
+wouldn’t have thought so had you dropped in upon us and scanned his
+waist measure, but then, of course, you don’t know Marny.
+
+Again Marny’s eyes rested for a moment on the miniature; then he went
+on:
+
+“We were about broke when I painted it,” he said. “There was a fair of
+some sort in the village, and I got an old frame for half a mark in a
+pawnshop, borrowed a coat from Fritz, the stableman, squeezed Fiddles
+into it, stuck a student’s cap on his head, made it look a hundred years
+old--the frame was all of that--and tried to sell it as a portrait of a
+‘Gentleman of the Last Century,’ but it wouldn’t work. Fiddles’s
+laugh gave it away. ‘Looks like you,’ the old man said. ‘Yes, it’s my
+brother,’ he blurted out, slapping the dealer on the back.”
+
+“Where did you pick Fiddles up?” I asked.
+
+“Nowhere,” answered Marny; “he picked me up. That is, the gendarme did
+who had him by the coat collar.”
+
+“‘This fellow insists you know him,’ said the officer of the law. ‘He
+says that he is honest and that this rabbit’--here he pointed to a pair
+of long ears sticking out of a game bag--‘is one he shot with the Mayor
+this morning. Is this true?’
+
+“Now if there is one thing, old man,” continued Marny, “that gets me hot
+around the collar, it is to see a brother sportsman arrested for killing
+anything that can fly, run, or swim. So I rose from my sketching stool
+and looked him over: his eyes--not a bit of harm in ‘em; his loose
+necktie thrown over one shoulder; trim waist, and so on down to the
+leather leggings buttoned to his knees. If he was a poacher and subject
+to the law, he certainly was the most picturesque specimen I had met in
+many a day. I had, of course, never laid eyes on him before, having been
+but a few days in the village, but that made the situation all the
+more interesting. To rescue a friend would be commonplace, to rescue a
+stranger smacked of adventure.
+
+“I uncovered my head and bowed to the ground. ‘His Honor shoots almost
+every day, your Excellency,’ I said to the gendarme. ‘I have seen
+him frequently with his friends--this young man is no doubt one of
+them--Let--me--think--was it this morning, or yesterday, I met the
+Mayor? It is at best a very small rabbit’--here I fingered the head and
+ears--‘and would probably have died of hunger anyway. However, if any
+claim should be made by the farmer I will pay the damages’--this with a
+lordly air, and I with only a week’s board in my pocket.
+
+“The gendarme released his hold and stood looking at the young fellow.
+The day was hot and the village lock-up two miles away. That the rabbit
+was small and the Mayor an inveterate sportsman were also undeniable
+facts.
+
+“‘Next time,’ he said sententiously, with a scowl, ‘do you let his Honor
+carry the game home in his own bag,’ and he walked away.
+
+“Oh, you just ought to have seen Fiddles skip around when a turn in the
+road shut out the cocked hat and cross-belts, and heard him pour out his
+thanks. ‘His name was Wilhelm, he cried out; it had only been by chance
+that he had got separated from his friends. Where did I live? Would I
+let him give me the rabbit for a stew for my dinner? Was I the painter
+who had come to the inn? If so he had heard of me. Could he and his
+friends call upon me that night? He would never forget my kindness. What
+was the use of being a gentleman if you couldn’t help another gentleman
+out of a scrape? As for Herr Rabbit--the poor little Herr Rabbit-here he
+stroked his fur--what more honorable end than gracing the table of the
+Honorable Painter? Ah, these dogs of the law--when would they learn not
+to meddle with things that did not concern them?”
+
+“And did Fiddles come to your inn, Marny?” I asked, merely as a prod to
+keep him going.
+
+“Yes, a week later, and with the same gendarme. The cobbler in the
+village, who sat all day long pegging at his shoes, and who, it seemed,
+was watch-goose for the whole village and knew the movements of every
+inhabitant, man, woman, and child, and who for some reason hated
+Fiddles, on being interviewed by the gendarme, had stated positively
+that the Mayor had _not_ passed his corner with his gun and four dogs
+on the day of Fiddles’s arrest. This being the case, the gendarme had
+rearrested the culprit, and would have taken him at once to the lock-up
+had not Fiddles threatened the officer with false arrest. Would the Herr
+Painter accompany the officer and himself to the house of the Mayor and
+settle the matter as to whether his Honor was or was not out hunting on
+that particular morning?
+
+“All this time Fiddles was looking about the dining-room of the inn,
+taking in the supper-table, the rows of mugs, especially the landlady,
+who was frightened half out of her wits by Cocked Hat’s presence, and
+more especially still little Gretchen--such a plump, rosy-cheeked,
+blue-eyed little Dutch girl--with two Marguerite pig-tails down her
+back. (Gretchen served the beer, and was the life of the place. ‘Poor
+young man!’ she said to the landlady, who had by this time come to the
+same conclusion--‘and he is so good-looking and with such lovely eyes.’)
+
+“When we got to the Mayor’s the old fellow was asleep in a big armchair,
+his pipe out, his legs far apart--a keg-shaped kind of a man, with a
+head flattened on his shoulders like a stove-lid, who said ‘Ach Gott’
+every five minutes, and spluttered when he talked.
+
+“I went in first, leaving the two on the porch until I should send for
+them. I didn’t know how things were going to turn out and had become a
+little anxious. I had run up from Munich for a few weeks’ outdoor work
+and wanted to stay out, not behind iron bars for abetting crime.
+
+“‘Your Supreme Highness,’ I began, ‘I have heard of your great prowess
+as a sportsman, and so I wanted to pay my respects. I, too, am a
+shootist--an American shootist.’ Here I launched out on our big game (I
+had been six months in the Rockies before I came abroad, and knew what
+I was talking about). He was wide awake by this time and was listening.
+Dropping into the chair which he had drawn up for me, I told him of
+our elk--‘As big as horses, your Honor’; of our mountain lions--savage
+beasts that could climb trees and fall upon the defenseless; of our
+catamounts, deer, wolves, bears, foxes--all these we killed without
+molestation from anybody; I told him how all American sportsmen were
+like the Nimrods of old. How galling, then, for a true shootist to be
+misunderstood, decried, denounced, and arrested for so insignificant a
+beastie as a rabbit! This indignity my very dear friend, Herr Wilhelm
+Fuedels-Shimmer, had suffered--a most estimable young man--careless,
+perhaps, in his interpretation of the law, but who would not be--that
+is, what sportsman would not be? I had in Wilhelm’s defense not only
+backed up his story, but I had gone so far as to hazard the opinion to
+the officer of that law, that it was not on some uncertain Tuesday
+or Friday or Saturday, but on that very Wednesday, that his Supreme
+Highness had been wont to follow with his four accomplished dogs the
+tracks of the nimble cotton-tail. Would his Highness, therefore, be good
+enough to concentrate his giant brain on his past life and fish from out
+his memory the exact day on which he last hunted? While that was going
+on I would excuse myself long enough to bring in the alleged criminal.
+
+“Fiddles stepped in with the easy grace of a courtier accustomed to
+meeting a Mayor every day of his life, and, after a confirmatory wink
+from me, boldly asserted that he had followed behind his Honor--had
+really assisted in driving the game his way. His Honor might not
+remember his face, but he surely must remember that his Honorable Honor
+had extraordinarily good luck that day. The rabbit in controversy--a
+very small, quite a baby rabbit--was really one his Honorable and
+Most Supreme Highness had himself wounded, and which he, Fiddles, had
+finished. He was bringing it to his Honor when the estimable gendarme
+had stopped him.
+
+“‘And what day was that?’ interrupted the Mayor.
+
+“‘On last Wednesday.’
+
+“‘The cobbler said it was Tuesday,’ insisted Cocked Hat. ‘On this point
+hangs the case. Now on which day did your Honor take the field with your
+dogs?’
+
+“There was a dead silence, during which the Mayor’s eyes rested on the
+culprit. Fiddles returned the look, head up, a smile on his lips that
+would have fooled the devil himself. Then his Honor turned to me
+and said: ‘My memory is not always very good, but this time the
+cobbler’s--who is a meddlesome person--is even more defective. Yes,
+I think it quite possible I was hunting on last Wednesday. I can
+sympathize with the young man as to the size of the rabbit. They are
+running very small this year. My decision, therefore, is that you can
+let the young man go.’
+
+“Oh, but that was a great night at the inn. Gretchen was so happy that
+she spilled the beer down the apothecary’s back and the landlady could
+talk of nothing but Fiddles’s release. But the real fun began an hour
+later, when shouts for the Herr Mahler, interwoven with the music of a
+concertina, made me step to the door. Outside, in the road, stood
+four young men--all pals of Fiddles, all bareheaded, and all carrying
+lanterns. They had come to crown the American with a gold chaplet cut
+from gilt paper, after which I was to be conducted to the public house
+where bumpers of beer were to be drunk until the last pfennig was spent.
+
+“On hearing this, Gretchen, the landlady, the apothecary, the hostler,
+and the stable-boy--not the cobbler, you may be sure--burst forth with
+cries of: ‘Hip! Hip!--Hock! Donder und Blitzen!’ or whatever they do
+yell when they are mad with joy.
+
+“Then the landlady broke out in a fresh place: ‘No public-house for
+you! This is my treat! All of you come inside. Gretchen, get the mugs
+full--all the mugs--Sit down! Sit down! The Herr Painter at the top of
+the table, the Herr Feudels-Shimmer on the right; all the other Herrs
+anywhere in between. Hock the Mahler! Hock the Hunter! Hock everybody
+but the cobbler!’ Here a groan went round. ‘Hock! Hip and Blather
+skitzen for the good and honorable Mayor, who always loves the people!’
+
+“‘And Hock! too, for the honorable and good gendarme!’ laughed Fiddles,
+dropping into his chair. ‘But for him I would be in the lock-up instead
+of basking in the smiles of two such lovely women as the fascinating
+landlady and the bewitching Gretchen.’
+
+“After that Fiddles and I became inseparable. That I hadn’t a mark
+over my expenses to give him in return for his services--and there was
+nothing he would not do for me--made no difference. He wouldn’t take any
+wages; all he wanted was to carry my traps, to sit by me while I worked;
+wake me up in the morning, be the last to wish me good night. Soon it
+became a settled fact that, while the landlady fed two mouths--mine and
+Fiddles’s--and provided two beds--Fiddles in the garret--my single board
+bill covered all the items. ‘That is the Herr Painter and his servant,’
+she would say to inquiring strangers who watched us depart for a day’s
+work, Fiddles carrying my easel and traps.
+
+“This went on for weeks--might have gone on all summer but for
+the events which followed a day’s outing. We had spent the morning
+sketching, and on our way home had stood opposite a wide-open gate--a
+great baronial affair with a coat of arms in twisted iron, the whole
+flanked by two royal lamps.
+
+“‘Step inside, Master,’ said Fiddles. ‘It is hot, and there is a seat
+under that tree; there we will get cool.’
+
+“‘It’s against the rules, Fiddles, and I don’t know these people.’
+
+“‘Then I’ll introduce you.’
+
+“He was half-way across the grass by this time and within reach of a
+wooden bench, when an old lady stepped out from behind a tree--a real
+old aristocrat in black silk and white ruffles. She had a book in her
+hand, and had evidently been reading.
+
+“You should have seen the bow Fiddles gave her, and the courtesy she
+returned.
+
+“‘Madame the Baroness,’ said the rascal, with an irradiating smile as I
+approached them, ‘has been good enough to ask us to accompany her to the
+house. Permit me, Madame, to present my friend, a distinguished American
+painter who is visiting our country, and who was so entranced at the
+beauty of your grounds and the regal splendor of your gate and château
+that rather than disappoint him--’
+
+“‘You are both doubly welcome, gentlemen,’ ‘This way, please,’ replied the
+old lady with a dip of her aristocratic head; and before I knew it we
+were seated in an oak-panelled dining-room with two servants in livery
+tumbling over each other in their efforts to find the particular wine
+best suited to our palates.
+
+“Fiddles sipped his Rudesheimer with the air of a connoisseur, blinking
+at the ceiling now and then after the manner of expert wine tasters, and
+complimenting the old lady meanwhile on the quality of the vintage.
+I confined myself to a glass of sherry and a biscuit, while Fiddles,
+rising from his seat, later on, stood enraptured before this portrait
+and that, commenting on their coloring, ending by drawing an ancient
+book from the library and going into ecstasies over the binding and
+type.
+
+“On our way home to the inn from the chateau there was, so far as I
+could see, no change in Fiddles’s manner. Neither was his speech or gait
+at all affected by the bottle of Rudesheimer (and he managed to get away
+with it all). I mention this because it is vitally important to what
+follows. Only once did he seem at all excited, and that was when he
+passed the cobbler’s corner. But then he was always excited when he
+passed the cobbler seated at work--so much so sometimes that I have seen
+him shake his fist at him. To-day he merely tightened his jaw, stopped
+for a moment as if determined to step in and have it out with him (the
+cobbler, I afterward found out, was to leave the village for good the
+next day, his trade having fallen off, owing to his being so unpopular),
+and then, as if changing his mind, followed along after me, muttering:
+‘Spy--informer--beast--’ as I had often heard him do before.
+
+“Judge of my astonishment then, when, an hour later, Gretchen came
+running into my room wringing her hands--I had caught him kissing her
+the night before--and burst out with:
+
+“‘He is under the table--the huckster’s feet on him--He is there like a
+dog--Oh, it is dreadful! Mine Herr--won’t you come?’
+
+“‘Who is under the table?’
+
+“‘Wilhelm.’
+
+“‘Where?’
+
+“‘At the public-house.’
+
+“‘How do you know?’
+
+“‘Fritz, the stable-boy has just seen him.’
+
+“‘What’s the matter with him?’
+
+“Gretchen hung her head, and the tears streamed down her cheeks,
+
+“‘He is--he is--Oh, Meinherr--it is not the beer--nobody ever gets that
+way with our beer--it is something he--’
+
+“’ Drunk!’
+
+“‘Yes, dead drunk, and under the table like a hog in the mud--Oh, my
+poor Wilhelm! Oh, who has been so wicked to you! Oh! Oh!’ and she ran
+from the room.
+
+“I started on the run, Gretchen and the good landlady close behind. If
+the Rudesheimer had upset Fiddles it had worked very slowly; maybe
+it had revived an old conquered thirst, and the cheap cognac at the
+public-house was the result. That he was not a man of humble birth,
+nor one without home refinements, I had long since divined. Had I not
+suspected it before, his manner in presenting me to the old Baroness,
+and his behavior in the dining-hall, especially toward the servants,
+would have opened my eyes. How then could such a man in an hour become
+so besotted a brute?
+
+“And yet every word of Gretchen’s story was true. Not only was Fiddles
+drunk, soggy, helplessly drunk, but from all accounts he was in that
+same condition when he had staggered into the place, and, falling over
+a table, had rolled himself against the wall. There he had lain, out of
+the way, except when some dram-drinking driver’s heavy cowhide boots had
+made a doormat of his yielding body--not an unusual occurrence, by the
+way, at the roadside taverns frequented by the lower classes.
+
+“We worked over him, calling him by name, propping him up against the
+wall, only to have him sag back; and finally, at the suggestion of one
+of the truckmen--he was in a half-comatose state really from the liquor
+he had absorbed--we carried him out into the stable yard, and I held his
+shapely head, with its beautiful hair a-frowze, while a stream of cold
+water from the pump struck the back of his head and neck.
+
+“The poor fellow stared around wildly as the chill reached his nerves
+and tried to put his arm around me, then he toppled over again and lay
+like a log. Nothing was left but to pick him up bodily and carry him
+home; that I did with Fritz’s, the stable-boy’s, help, Gretchen carrying
+his cap, and the landlady following behind with his coat, which I had
+stripped off when his head went under the pump. The bystanders didn’t
+care--one drunken man more or less made no difference--but both of
+the women were in tears, ‘Poor Wilhelm! Somebody had drugged him; some
+wicked men had played a trick, etc., etc. I thought of the Rudesheimer,
+and then dismissed it from my mind. Something stronger than Rhine wine
+had wrought this change.
+
+“We laid him flat out on a cot in a room on the second floor, and
+dragged it near the open window so he could get the air from the garden,
+and left him, I taking the precaution to lock the door to prevent his
+staggering downstairs and breaking his neck.
+
+“The next morning, before I was dressed, in fact, a row downstairs
+brought me into the hall outside my door, where I stood listening over
+the banister. Then came the tramp of men, and three gendarmes mounted
+the steps and halted at Fiddles’s door.
+
+“Bang! bang! went the hilt of a short-sword on the panel. ‘Open, in the
+name of the law.’
+
+“‘What for?’ I demanded. Getting drunk was not a crime in Rosengarten,
+especially when the offender had been tucked away in bed.
+
+“‘For smashing the face of a citizen--a worthy cobbler--the night
+before, at the hour of eight,--just as he was closing his shutters. The
+cobbler lay insensible until he had been found by the patrol. He had,
+however, recognized Fuedels-Shimmer as the--’
+
+“‘But, gentleman, Herr Fiddles was dead drunk at eight o’clock; he
+hasn’t stirred out of the room since. Here is the key,’ and I unlocked
+the door and we all stepped in, Gretchen and the landlady close behind.
+They had told the officers the same story downstairs, but they would not
+believe it.
+
+“At the intrusion, Fiddles rose to a sitting posture and stared
+wonderingly. He was sober enough now, but his heavy sleep still showed
+about his eyes.
+
+“The production of the key, my positive statement, backed by the women,
+and Fiddles’s wondering gaze, brought the gendarmes to a halt for a
+moment, but his previous arrest was against him, and so the boy was
+finally ordered to put on his clothes and accompany them to the lock-up.
+
+“I got into the rest of my duds, and began waving the American flag and
+ordering out gunboats. I insisted that the cobbler had lied before in
+accusing Fiddles of shooting the rabbit, as was well known, and he would
+lie again. Fiddles was my friend, my servant--a youth of incorruptible
+character. It is true he had been intoxicated the night before, and that
+I had in consequence put him to bed, but that was entirely due to the
+effects of some very rare wine which he had drunk at a luncheon given
+in his honor and mine by our very dear friend the Baroness Morghenslitz,
+who had entertained us at her princely home. This, with the heat of the
+day, had been, etc., etc.
+
+“The mention of the distinguished woman’s name caused another halt.
+Further consultation ensued, resulting in the decision that we all
+adjourn to the office of the Mayor. If, after hearing our alibi--one
+beyond dispute, and submitting our evidence (Exhibit A, the key, which
+they must admit exactly fitted the lock of Fiddles’s bedroom door),
+his Honor could still be made to believe the perjured testimony of the
+cobbler--Fiddles’s enemy, as had been abundantly proved in the previous
+rabbit case, when the same mendacious half-soler and heeler had informed
+on my friend--well and good; but if not, then, the resources of my
+Government would be set in motion for the young man’s release.
+
+“The Mayor’s first words were: ‘Ah, you have come again, is it, Meinherr
+Marny; and it is the same young man, too, Herr Fuddles. Well, well, it
+is much trouble that you have.’ (I’d give it to you in German, old man,
+but you wouldn’t understand it--this to me in a sort of an aside.)
+
+“Fiddles never moved a muscle of his face. You would have thought that
+he was the least interested man in the room. Only once did his features
+relax, and that was when the cobbler arrived with his head swathed in
+bandages. Then a grim smile flickered about the corners of his mouth, as
+if fate had at last overtaken his enemy.
+
+“Of course, the Mayor dismissed the case. Gretchen’s tearful, pleading
+face, the landlady’s positive statement of helping put the dear young
+gentleman to bed; the key and the use I had made of it; the reluctant
+testimony of the officers, who had tried the knob and could not get in
+until I had turned the lock, together with the well-known animosity of
+the cobbler (and all because Fiddles had ridiculed his workmanship on
+a pair of shoes the boy had left with him to be half-soled), turned the
+tide in the lad’s favor and sent us all back to the inn rejoicing.
+
+“Some weeks later Fiddles came into my room, locked the door, pulled
+down the shades, looked under the bed, in the closet and behind the
+curtains, and sat down in front of me. (I had to return to Munich the
+next day, and this would be our last night together.)
+
+“You have been very good to me, Master,’ he said with a choke in his
+voice. ‘I love people who are good to me; I hate those who are not. I
+have been that way all my life--it would have been better for me if
+I hadn’t.’ Then he leaned forward and took my hand. ‘I want you to do
+something more for me; I want you to promise me you’ll take me home to
+America with you when you go. I’m tired dodging these people. I want to
+get somewhere where I can shoot and hunt and fish, and nobody can stop
+me. I snared that rabbit; been snaring them all summer; going to keep
+on snaring them after you’re gone. I love to hunt them--love the fun
+of it--born that way. And I’ve got something else to tell you’--here a
+triumphant smile flashed over his face--‘I smashed that cobbler!’
+
+“‘You, Fiddles!’ I laughed. ‘Why, you were dead drunk, and I put you
+under the pump and--’
+
+“‘Yes, I know you thought so--I intended you should. I heard every word
+that you said, and what little Gretchen said--dear little Gretchen, I
+had studied it all out, and to play drunk seemed the best way to get at
+the brute, and it was; they’d have proved it on me if I hadn’t fooled
+them that way--’ and again his eyes snapped and his face flushed as the
+humor of the situation rose in his mind. ‘You’ll forgive me, won’t you?
+Don’t tell Gretchen.’ The light in his eyes was gone now. I’d rather
+she’d think me drunk than vulgar, and it was vulgar, and maybe cowardly,
+to hit him, but I couldn’t help that either, and I’m not sorry I did
+it.’
+
+“‘But I locked you in,’ I persisted. Was this some invention of his
+fertile imagination, or was it true?
+
+“‘Yes, you locked the door,’ he answered, as he broke into a subdued
+laugh. ‘I dropped from the window sill when it got dark--it wasn’t high,
+about fifteen feet, and the waterspout helped--ran down the back way,
+gave him a crack as he opened the door, and was back in bed by the help
+of the same spout before he had come to. He was leaving the next day
+and it was my only chance. I wasn’t out of the room five minutes--maybe
+less. You’ll forgive me that too, won’t you?’”
+
+Marny stopped and looked into the smouldering coals. For a brief instant
+he did not speak. Then he rose from his chair, crossed the room, took
+the miniature from the wall where he had hung it and looked at it
+steadily.
+
+“What a delightful devil you were, Fiddles. And you were so human.”
+
+“Is he living yet?” I asked.
+
+“No, he died in Gretchen’s arms. I kept my promise, and two months
+later went back to the village to bring him to America with me, but a
+forester’s bullet had ended him. It was on the Baroness’s grounds, too.
+He wouldn’t halt and the guard fired. Think of killing such an adorable
+savage--and all because the blood of the primeval man boiled in his
+veins. Oh, it was damnable!”
+
+“And you know nothing more about him? Where he came from?” The story had
+strangely moved me. “Were there no letters or notebooks? Nothing to show
+who he really was?”
+
+“Only an empty envelope postmarked ‘Berlin.’ This had reached him the
+day before, and was sealed with a coat of arms in violet wax.”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Fiddles, by F. Hopkinson Smith
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIDDLES ***
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fiddles, by F. Hopkinson Smith
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Fiddles
+       1909
+
+Author: F. Hopkinson Smith
+
+Release Date: December 3, 2007 [EBook #23698]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIDDLES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+FIDDLES
+
+By F. Hopkinson Smith
+
+1909
+
+
+This is Marny's story, not mine. He had a hammer in his hand at the time
+and a tack between his teeth.
+
+"Going to hang Fiddles right under the old fellow's head," he burst out.
+"That's where he belongs. I'd have given a ten-acre if he could have
+drawn a bead on that elk himself. Fiddles behind a .44 Winchester
+and that old buck browsing to windward"--and he nodded at the elk's
+head--"would have made the village Mayor sit up and think. What a
+picturesque liar you are, Fiddles"--here the point of the tack
+was pressed into the plaster with Marny's fat thumb--"and what a
+good-for-nothing, breezy, lovable vagabond"--(Bang! Bang! Hammer at play
+now)--"you could be when you tried. There!"
+
+Marny stepped back and took in the stuffed head and wide-branched
+antlers of the magnificent elk (five feet six from skull to tips) and
+the small, partly faded miniature of a young man in a student cap and
+high-collared coat.
+
+I waited and let him run on. It is never wise to interrupt Marny. He
+will lose the thread of his talk if you do, and though he starts off
+immediately on another lead, and one, perhaps equally graphic, he
+has left you suspended in mid-air so far as the tale you were getting
+interested in is concerned. Who Fiddles was and why his Honor the Mayor
+should sit up and think; why, too, the miniature of the young man--and
+he _was_ young and remarkably good-looking, as I well knew, having seen
+the picture many times before on his mantel--should now be suspended
+below the elk's head, would come out in time if I loosened my ear-flaps
+and buttoned up my tongue, but not if I reversed the operation.
+
+"Ah, you young fraud," he went on--the position of both head and
+miniature pleased him now--"do you remember the time I hauled you out
+from under the table when the hucksters were making a door-mat of your
+back; and the time I washed you off at the pump, and what you said
+to the gendarme, and--No, you never remembered anything. You'd
+rather sprawl out on the grass, or make eyes at Gretchen or the
+landlady--fifty, if she was a day--maybe fifty-five, and yet she fell in
+love" (this last was addressed directly to me; it had been reminiscent
+before that, fired at the ceiling, at the hangings in his sumptuous
+studio, or the fire crackling oil the hearth), "fell in love with that
+tramp--a boy of twenty-two,'mind you--Ah! but what a rounder he was!
+Such a trim, well-knit figure; so light and nimble on his feet; such a
+pair of eyes in his head, leaking tears one minute and flashing hate the
+next. And his mouth! I tried, but I couldn't paint it--nobody could--so
+I did his profile; one of those curving, seductive mouths you sometimes
+see on a man, that quivers when he smiles, the teeth gleaming between
+the moist lips."
+
+I had lassoed a chair with my foot by this time, had dragged it nearer
+the fire, and had settled myself in another.
+
+"Funny name, though for a German," I remarked carelessly--quite as if
+the fellow's patronymic had already formed part of the discussion.
+
+"Had to call him something for short," Marny retorted. "Feudels-Shimmer
+was what they called him in Rosengarten--Wilhelm Feudels-Shimmer. I
+tried all of it at first, then I bit off the Shimmer, and then the
+Wilhelm, and ran him along on Feudels for a while, then it got down to
+Fuddles, and at last to Fiddles, and there it stuck. Just fitted him,
+too. All he wanted was a bow, and I furnished that--enough of the
+devil's resin to set him going--and out would roll jigs, lullabys,
+fandangoes, serenades--anything you wanted: anything to which his mood
+tempted him."
+
+Marny had settled into his chair now, and had stretched his fat legs
+toward the blaze, his middle distance completely filling the space
+between the arms. He had pushed himself over many a ledge with this same
+pair of legs and on this same rotundity, his hand on his Winchester,
+before his first ball crashed through the shoulder of the big elk whose
+glass eyes were now looking down upon Fiddles and ourselves--and he
+would do it again on another big-horn when the season opened. You
+wouldn't have thought so had you dropped in upon us and scanned his
+waist measure, but then, of course, you don't know Marny.
+
+Again Marny's eyes rested for a moment on the miniature; then he went
+on:
+
+"We were about broke when I painted it," he said. "There was a fair of
+some sort in the village, and I got an old frame for half a mark in a
+pawnshop, borrowed a coat from Fritz, the stableman, squeezed Fiddles
+into it, stuck a student's cap on his head, made it look a hundred years
+old--the frame was all of that--and tried to sell it as a portrait of a
+'Gentleman of the Last Century,' but it wouldn't work. Fiddles's
+laugh gave it away. 'Looks like you,' the old man said. 'Yes, it's my
+brother,' he blurted out, slapping the dealer on the back."
+
+"Where did you pick Fiddles up?" I asked.
+
+"Nowhere," answered Marny; "he picked me up. That is, the gendarme did
+who had him by the coat collar."
+
+"'This fellow insists you know him,' said the officer of the law. 'He
+says that he is honest and that this rabbit'--here he pointed to a pair
+of long ears sticking out of a game bag--'is one he shot with the Mayor
+this morning. Is this true?'
+
+"Now if there is one thing, old man," continued Marny, "that gets me hot
+around the collar, it is to see a brother sportsman arrested for killing
+anything that can fly, run, or swim. So I rose from my sketching stool
+and looked him over: his eyes--not a bit of harm in 'em; his loose
+necktie thrown over one shoulder; trim waist, and so on down to the
+leather leggings buttoned to his knees. If he was a poacher and subject
+to the law, he certainly was the most picturesque specimen I had met in
+many a day. I had, of course, never laid eyes on him before, having been
+but a few days in the village, but that made the situation all the
+more interesting. To rescue a friend would be commonplace, to rescue a
+stranger smacked of adventure.
+
+"I uncovered my head and bowed to the ground. 'His Honor shoots almost
+every day, your Excellency,' I said to the gendarme. 'I have seen
+him frequently with his friends--this young man is no doubt one of
+them--Let--me--think--was it this morning, or yesterday, I met the
+Mayor? It is at best a very small rabbit'--here I fingered the head and
+ears--'and would probably have died of hunger anyway. However, if any
+claim should be made by the farmer I will pay the damages'--this with a
+lordly air, and I with only a week's board in my pocket.
+
+"The gendarme released his hold and stood looking at the young fellow.
+The day was hot and the village lock-up two miles away. That the rabbit
+was small and the Mayor an inveterate sportsman were also undeniable
+facts.
+
+"'Next time,' he said sententiously, with a scowl, 'do you let his Honor
+carry the game home in his own bag,' and he walked away.
+
+"Oh, you just ought to have seen Fiddles skip around when a turn in the
+road shut out the cocked hat and cross-belts, and heard him pour out his
+thanks. 'His name was Wilhelm, he cried out; it had only been by chance
+that he had got separated from his friends. Where did I live? Would I
+let him give me the rabbit for a stew for my dinner? Was I the painter
+who had come to the inn? If so he had heard of me. Could he and his
+friends call upon me that night? He would never forget my kindness. What
+was the use of being a gentleman if you couldn't help another gentleman
+out of a scrape? As for Herr Rabbit--the poor little Herr Rabbit-here he
+stroked his fur--what more honorable end than gracing the table of the
+Honorable Painter? Ah, these dogs of the law--when would they learn not
+to meddle with things that did not concern them?"
+
+"And did Fiddles come to your inn, Marny?" I asked, merely as a prod to
+keep him going.
+
+"Yes, a week later, and with the same gendarme. The cobbler in the
+village, who sat all day long pegging at his shoes, and who, it seemed,
+was watch-goose for the whole village and knew the movements of every
+inhabitant, man, woman, and child, and who for some reason hated
+Fiddles, on being interviewed by the gendarme, had stated positively
+that the Mayor had _not_ passed his corner with his gun and four dogs
+on the day of Fiddles's arrest. This being the case, the gendarme had
+rearrested the culprit, and would have taken him at once to the lock-up
+had not Fiddles threatened the officer with false arrest. Would the Herr
+Painter accompany the officer and himself to the house of the Mayor and
+settle the matter as to whether his Honor was or was not out hunting on
+that particular morning?
+
+"All this time Fiddles was looking about the dining-room of the inn,
+taking in the supper-table, the rows of mugs, especially the landlady,
+who was frightened half out of her wits by Cocked Hat's presence, and
+more especially still little Gretchen--such a plump, rosy-cheeked,
+blue-eyed little Dutch girl--with two Marguerite pig-tails down her
+back. (Gretchen served the beer, and was the life of the place. 'Poor
+young man!' she said to the landlady, who had by this time come to the
+same conclusion--'and he is so good-looking and with such lovely eyes.')
+
+"When we got to the Mayor's the old fellow was asleep in a big armchair,
+his pipe out, his legs far apart--a keg-shaped kind of a man, with a
+head flattened on his shoulders like a stove-lid, who said 'Ach Gott'
+every five minutes, and spluttered when he talked.
+
+"I went in first, leaving the two on the porch until I should send for
+them. I didn't know how things were going to turn out and had become a
+little anxious. I had run up from Munich for a few weeks' outdoor work
+and wanted to stay out, not behind iron bars for abetting crime.
+
+"'Your Supreme Highness,' I began, 'I have heard of your great prowess
+as a sportsman, and so I wanted to pay my respects. I, too, am a
+shootist--an American shootist.' Here I launched out on our big game (I
+had been six months in the Rockies before I came abroad, and knew what
+I was talking about). He was wide awake by this time and was listening.
+Dropping into the chair which he had drawn up for me, I told him of
+our elk--'As big as horses, your Honor'; of our mountain lions--savage
+beasts that could climb trees and fall upon the defenseless; of our
+catamounts, deer, wolves, bears, foxes--all these we killed without
+molestation from anybody; I told him how all American sportsmen were
+like the Nimrods of old. How galling, then, for a true shootist to be
+misunderstood, decried, denounced, and arrested for so insignificant a
+beastie as a rabbit! This indignity my very dear friend, Herr Wilhelm
+Fuedels-Shimmer, had suffered--a most estimable young man--careless,
+perhaps, in his interpretation of the law, but who would not be--that
+is, what sportsman would not be? I had in Wilhelm's defense not only
+backed up his story, but I had gone so far as to hazard the opinion to
+the officer of that law, that it was not on some uncertain Tuesday
+or Friday or Saturday, but on that very Wednesday, that his Supreme
+Highness had been wont to follow with his four accomplished dogs the
+tracks of the nimble cotton-tail. Would his Highness, therefore, be good
+enough to concentrate his giant brain on his past life and fish from out
+his memory the exact day on which he last hunted? While that was going
+on I would excuse myself long enough to bring in the alleged criminal.
+
+"Fiddles stepped in with the easy grace of a courtier accustomed to
+meeting a Mayor every day of his life, and, after a confirmatory wink
+from me, boldly asserted that he had followed behind his Honor--had
+really assisted in driving the game his way. His Honor might not
+remember his face, but he surely must remember that his Honorable Honor
+had extraordinarily good luck that day. The rabbit in controversy--a
+very small, quite a baby rabbit--was really one his Honorable and
+Most Supreme Highness had himself wounded, and which he, Fiddles, had
+finished. He was bringing it to his Honor when the estimable gendarme
+had stopped him.
+
+"'And what day was that?' interrupted the Mayor.
+
+"'On last Wednesday.'
+
+"'The cobbler said it was Tuesday,' insisted Cocked Hat. 'On this point
+hangs the case. Now on which day did your Honor take the field with your
+dogs?'
+
+"There was a dead silence, during which the Mayor's eyes rested on the
+culprit. Fiddles returned the look, head up, a smile on his lips that
+would have fooled the devil himself. Then his Honor turned to me
+and said: 'My memory is not always very good, but this time the
+cobbler's--who is a meddlesome person--is even more defective. Yes,
+I think it quite possible I was hunting on last Wednesday. I can
+sympathize with the young man as to the size of the rabbit. They are
+running very small this year. My decision, therefore, is that you can
+let the young man go.'
+
+"Oh, but that was a great night at the inn. Gretchen was so happy that
+she spilled the beer down the apothecary's back and the landlady could
+talk of nothing but Fiddles's release. But the real fun began an hour
+later, when shouts for the Herr Mahler, interwoven with the music of a
+concertina, made me step to the door. Outside, in the road, stood
+four young men--all pals of Fiddles, all bareheaded, and all carrying
+lanterns. They had come to crown the American with a gold chaplet cut
+from gilt paper, after which I was to be conducted to the public house
+where bumpers of beer were to be drunk until the last pfennig was spent.
+
+"On hearing this, Gretchen, the landlady, the apothecary, the hostler,
+and the stable-boy--not the cobbler, you may be sure--burst forth with
+cries of: 'Hip! Hip!--Hock! Donder und Blitzen!' or whatever they do
+yell when they are mad with joy.
+
+"Then the landlady broke out in a fresh place: 'No public-house for
+you! This is my treat! All of you come inside. Gretchen, get the mugs
+full--all the mugs--Sit down! Sit down! The Herr Painter at the top of
+the table, the Herr Feudels-Shimmer on the right; all the other Herrs
+anywhere in between. Hock the Mahler! Hock the Hunter! Hock everybody
+but the cobbler!' Here a groan went round. 'Hock! Hip and Blather
+skitzen for the good and honorable Mayor, who always loves the people!'
+
+"'And Hock! too, for the honorable and good gendarme!' laughed Fiddles,
+dropping into his chair. 'But for him I would be in the lock-up instead
+of basking in the smiles of two such lovely women as the fascinating
+landlady and the bewitching Gretchen.'
+
+"After that Fiddles and I became inseparable. That I hadn't a mark
+over my expenses to give him in return for his services--and there was
+nothing he would not do for me--made no difference. He wouldn't take any
+wages; all he wanted was to carry my traps, to sit by me while I worked;
+wake me up in the morning, be the last to wish me good night. Soon it
+became a settled fact that, while the landlady fed two mouths--mine and
+Fiddles's--and provided two beds--Fiddles in the garret--my single board
+bill covered all the items. 'That is the Herr Painter and his servant,'
+she would say to inquiring strangers who watched us depart for a day's
+work, Fiddles carrying my easel and traps.
+
+"This went on for weeks--might have gone on all summer but for
+the events which followed a day's outing. We had spent the morning
+sketching, and on our way home had stood opposite a wide-open gate--a
+great baronial affair with a coat of arms in twisted iron, the whole
+flanked by two royal lamps.
+
+"'Step inside, Master,' said Fiddles. 'It is hot, and there is a seat
+under that tree; there we will get cool.'
+
+"'It's against the rules, Fiddles, and I don't know these people.'
+
+"'Then I'll introduce you.'
+
+"He was half-way across the grass by this time and within reach of a
+wooden bench, when an old lady stepped out from behind a tree--a real
+old aristocrat in black silk and white ruffles. She had a book in her
+hand, and had evidently been reading.
+
+"You should have seen the bow Fiddles gave her, and the courtesy she
+returned.
+
+"'Madame the Baroness,' said the rascal, with an irradiating smile as I
+approached them, 'has been good enough to ask us to accompany her to the
+house. Permit me, Madame, to present my friend, a distinguished American
+painter who is visiting our country, and who was so entranced at the
+beauty of your grounds and the regal splendor of your gate and ch�teau
+that rather than disappoint him--'
+
+"'You are both doubly welcome, gentlemen,' 'This way, please,' replied the
+old lady with a dip of her aristocratic head; and before I knew it we
+were seated in an oak-panelled dining-room with two servants in livery
+tumbling over each other in their efforts to find the particular wine
+best suited to our palates.
+
+"Fiddles sipped his Rudesheimer with the air of a connoisseur, blinking
+at the ceiling now and then after the manner of expert wine tasters, and
+complimenting the old lady meanwhile on the quality of the vintage.
+I confined myself to a glass of sherry and a biscuit, while Fiddles,
+rising from his seat, later on, stood enraptured before this portrait
+and that, commenting on their coloring, ending by drawing an ancient
+book from the library and going into ecstasies over the binding and
+type.
+
+"On our way home to the inn from the chateau there was, so far as I
+could see, no change in Fiddles's manner. Neither was his speech or gait
+at all affected by the bottle of Rudesheimer (and he managed to get away
+with it all). I mention this because it is vitally important to what
+follows. Only once did he seem at all excited, and that was when he
+passed the cobbler's corner. But then he was always excited when he
+passed the cobbler seated at work--so much so sometimes that I have seen
+him shake his fist at him. To-day he merely tightened his jaw, stopped
+for a moment as if determined to step in and have it out with him (the
+cobbler, I afterward found out, was to leave the village for good the
+next day, his trade having fallen off, owing to his being so unpopular),
+and then, as if changing his mind, followed along after me, muttering:
+'Spy--informer--beast--' as I had often heard him do before.
+
+"Judge of my astonishment then, when, an hour later, Gretchen came
+running into my room wringing her hands--I had caught him kissing her
+the night before--and burst out with:
+
+"'He is under the table--the huckster's feet on him--He is there like a
+dog--Oh, it is dreadful! Mine Herr--won't you come?'
+
+"'Who is under the table?'
+
+"'Wilhelm.'
+
+"'Where?'
+
+"'At the public-house.'
+
+"'How do you know?'
+
+"'Fritz, the stable-boy has just seen him.'
+
+"'What's the matter with him?'
+
+"Gretchen hung her head, and the tears streamed down her cheeks,
+
+"'He is--he is--Oh, Meinherr--it is not the beer--nobody ever gets that
+way with our beer--it is something he--'
+
+"' Drunk!'
+
+"'Yes, dead drunk, and under the table like a hog in the mud--Oh, my
+poor Wilhelm! Oh, who has been so wicked to you! Oh! Oh!' and she ran
+from the room.
+
+"I started on the run, Gretchen and the good landlady close behind. If
+the Rudesheimer had upset Fiddles it had worked very slowly; maybe
+it had revived an old conquered thirst, and the cheap cognac at the
+public-house was the result. That he was not a man of humble birth,
+nor one without home refinements, I had long since divined. Had I not
+suspected it before, his manner in presenting me to the old Baroness,
+and his behavior in the dining-hall, especially toward the servants,
+would have opened my eyes. How then could such a man in an hour become
+so besotted a brute?
+
+"And yet every word of Gretchen's story was true. Not only was Fiddles
+drunk, soggy, helplessly drunk, but from all accounts he was in that
+same condition when he had staggered into the place, and, falling over
+a table, had rolled himself against the wall. There he had lain, out of
+the way, except when some dram-drinking driver's heavy cowhide boots had
+made a doormat of his yielding body--not an unusual occurrence, by the
+way, at the roadside taverns frequented by the lower classes.
+
+"We worked over him, calling him by name, propping him up against the
+wall, only to have him sag back; and finally, at the suggestion of one
+of the truckmen--he was in a half-comatose state really from the liquor
+he had absorbed--we carried him out into the stable yard, and I held his
+shapely head, with its beautiful hair a-frowze, while a stream of cold
+water from the pump struck the back of his head and neck.
+
+"The poor fellow stared around wildly as the chill reached his nerves
+and tried to put his arm around me, then he toppled over again and lay
+like a log. Nothing was left but to pick him up bodily and carry him
+home; that I did with Fritz's, the stable-boy's, help, Gretchen carrying
+his cap, and the landlady following behind with his coat, which I had
+stripped off when his head went under the pump. The bystanders didn't
+care--one drunken man more or less made no difference--but both of
+the women were in tears, 'Poor Wilhelm! Somebody had drugged him; some
+wicked men had played a trick, etc., etc. I thought of the Rudesheimer,
+and then dismissed it from my mind. Something stronger than Rhine wine
+had wrought this change.
+
+"We laid him flat out on a cot in a room on the second floor, and
+dragged it near the open window so he could get the air from the garden,
+and left him, I taking the precaution to lock the door to prevent his
+staggering downstairs and breaking his neck.
+
+"The next morning, before I was dressed, in fact, a row downstairs
+brought me into the hall outside my door, where I stood listening over
+the banister. Then came the tramp of men, and three gendarmes mounted
+the steps and halted at Fiddles's door.
+
+"Bang! bang! went the hilt of a short-sword on the panel. 'Open, in the
+name of the law.'
+
+"'What for?' I demanded. Getting drunk was not a crime in Rosengarten,
+especially when the offender had been tucked away in bed.
+
+"'For smashing the face of a citizen--a worthy cobbler--the night
+before, at the hour of eight,--just as he was closing his shutters. The
+cobbler lay insensible until he had been found by the patrol. He had,
+however, recognized Fuedels-Shimmer as the--'
+
+"'But, gentleman, Herr Fiddles was dead drunk at eight o'clock; he
+hasn't stirred out of the room since. Here is the key,' and I unlocked
+the door and we all stepped in, Gretchen and the landlady close behind.
+They had told the officers the same story downstairs, but they would not
+believe it.
+
+"At the intrusion, Fiddles rose to a sitting posture and stared
+wonderingly. He was sober enough now, but his heavy sleep still showed
+about his eyes.
+
+"The production of the key, my positive statement, backed by the women,
+and Fiddles's wondering gaze, brought the gendarmes to a halt for a
+moment, but his previous arrest was against him, and so the boy was
+finally ordered to put on his clothes and accompany them to the lock-up.
+
+"I got into the rest of my duds, and began waving the American flag and
+ordering out gunboats. I insisted that the cobbler had lied before in
+accusing Fiddles of shooting the rabbit, as was well known, and he would
+lie again. Fiddles was my friend, my servant--a youth of incorruptible
+character. It is true he had been intoxicated the night before, and that
+I had in consequence put him to bed, but that was entirely due to the
+effects of some very rare wine which he had drunk at a luncheon given
+in his honor and mine by our very dear friend the Baroness Morghenslitz,
+who had entertained us at her princely home. This, with the heat of the
+day, had been, etc., etc.
+
+"The mention of the distinguished woman's name caused another halt.
+Further consultation ensued, resulting in the decision that we all
+adjourn to the office of the Mayor. If, after hearing our alibi--one
+beyond dispute, and submitting our evidence (Exhibit A, the key, which
+they must admit exactly fitted the lock of Fiddles's bedroom door),
+his Honor could still be made to believe the perjured testimony of the
+cobbler--Fiddles's enemy, as had been abundantly proved in the previous
+rabbit case, when the same mendacious half-soler and heeler had informed
+on my friend--well and good; but if not, then, the resources of my
+Government would be set in motion for the young man's release.
+
+"The Mayor's first words were: 'Ah, you have come again, is it, Meinherr
+Marny; and it is the same young man, too, Herr Fuddles. Well, well, it
+is much trouble that you have.' (I'd give it to you in German, old man,
+but you wouldn't understand it--this to me in a sort of an aside.)
+
+"Fiddles never moved a muscle of his face. You would have thought that
+he was the least interested man in the room. Only once did his features
+relax, and that was when the cobbler arrived with his head swathed in
+bandages. Then a grim smile flickered about the corners of his mouth, as
+if fate had at last overtaken his enemy.
+
+"Of course, the Mayor dismissed the case. Gretchen's tearful, pleading
+face, the landlady's positive statement of helping put the dear young
+gentleman to bed; the key and the use I had made of it; the reluctant
+testimony of the officers, who had tried the knob and could not get in
+until I had turned the lock, together with the well-known animosity of
+the cobbler (and all because Fiddles had ridiculed his workmanship on
+a pair of shoes the boy had left with him to be half-soled), turned the
+tide in the lad's favor and sent us all back to the inn rejoicing.
+
+"Some weeks later Fiddles came into my room, locked the door, pulled
+down the shades, looked under the bed, in the closet and behind the
+curtains, and sat down in front of me. (I had to return to Munich the
+next day, and this would be our last night together.)
+
+"You have been very good to me, Master,' he said with a choke in his
+voice. 'I love people who are good to me; I hate those who are not. I
+have been that way all my life--it would have been better for me if
+I hadn't.' Then he leaned forward and took my hand. 'I want you to do
+something more for me; I want you to promise me you'll take me home to
+America with you when you go. I'm tired dodging these people. I want to
+get somewhere where I can shoot and hunt and fish, and nobody can stop
+me. I snared that rabbit; been snaring them all summer; going to keep
+on snaring them after you're gone. I love to hunt them--love the fun
+of it--born that way. And I've got something else to tell you'--here a
+triumphant smile flashed over his face--'I smashed that cobbler!'
+
+"'You, Fiddles!' I laughed. 'Why, you were dead drunk, and I put you
+under the pump and--'
+
+"'Yes, I know you thought so--I intended you should. I heard every word
+that you said, and what little Gretchen said--dear little Gretchen, I
+had studied it all out, and to play drunk seemed the best way to get at
+the brute, and it was; they'd have proved it on me if I hadn't fooled
+them that way--' and again his eyes snapped and his face flushed as the
+humor of the situation rose in his mind. 'You'll forgive me, won't you?
+Don't tell Gretchen.' The light in his eyes was gone now. I'd rather
+she'd think me drunk than vulgar, and it was vulgar, and maybe cowardly,
+to hit him, but I couldn't help that either, and I'm not sorry I did
+it.'
+
+"'But I locked you in,' I persisted. Was this some invention of his
+fertile imagination, or was it true?
+
+"'Yes, you locked the door,' he answered, as he broke into a subdued
+laugh. 'I dropped from the window sill when it got dark--it wasn't high,
+about fifteen feet, and the waterspout helped--ran down the back way,
+gave him a crack as he opened the door, and was back in bed by the help
+of the same spout before he had come to. He was leaving the next day
+and it was my only chance. I wasn't out of the room five minutes--maybe
+less. You'll forgive me that too, won't you?'"
+
+Marny stopped and looked into the smouldering coals. For a brief instant
+he did not speak. Then he rose from his chair, crossed the room, took
+the miniature from the wall where he had hung it and looked at it
+steadily.
+
+"What a delightful devil you were, Fiddles. And you were so human."
+
+"Is he living yet?" I asked.
+
+"No, he died in Gretchen's arms. I kept my promise, and two months
+later went back to the village to bring him to America with me, but a
+forester's bullet had ended him. It was on the Baroness's grounds, too.
+He wouldn't halt and the guard fired. Think of killing such an adorable
+savage--and all because the blood of the primeval man boiled in his
+veins. Oh, it was damnable!"
+
+"And you know nothing more about him? Where he came from?" The story had
+strangely moved me. "Were there no letters or notebooks? Nothing to show
+who he really was?"
+
+"Only an empty envelope postmarked 'Berlin.' This had reached him the
+day before, and was sealed with a coat of arms in violet wax."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Fiddles, by F. Hopkinson Smith
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+
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+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" />
+    <title>
+      Fiddles, by F. Hopkinson Smith
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
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+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
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+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fiddles, by F. Hopkinson Smith
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Fiddles
+       1909
+
+Author: F. Hopkinson Smith
+
+Release Date: December 3, 2007 [EBook #23698]
+Last Updated: December 20, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIDDLES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <div style="height: 8em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      FIDDLES
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      By F. Hopkinson Smith <br /><br /> 1909
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is Marny&rsquo;s story, not mine. He had a hammer in his hand at the time
+      and a tack between his teeth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Going to hang Fiddles right under the old fellow&rsquo;s head,&rdquo; he burst out.
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s where he belongs. I&rsquo;d have given a ten-acre if he could have drawn
+      a bead on that elk himself. Fiddles behind a .44 Winchester and that old
+      buck browsing to windward&rdquo;&mdash;and he nodded at the elk&rsquo;s head&mdash;&ldquo;would
+      have made the village Mayor sit up and think. What a picturesque liar you
+      are, Fiddles&rdquo;&mdash;here the point of the tack was pressed into the
+      plaster with Marny&rsquo;s fat thumb&mdash;&ldquo;and what a good-for-nothing, breezy,
+      lovable vagabond&rdquo;&mdash;(Bang! Bang! Hammer at play now)&mdash;&ldquo;you could
+      be when you tried. There!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Marny stepped back and took in the stuffed head and wide-branched antlers
+      of the magnificent elk (five feet six from skull to tips) and the small,
+      partly faded miniature of a young man in a student cap and high-collared
+      coat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I waited and let him run on. It is never wise to interrupt Marny. He will
+      lose the thread of his talk if you do, and though he starts off
+      immediately on another lead, and one, perhaps equally graphic, he has left
+      you suspended in mid-air so far as the tale you were getting interested in
+      is concerned. Who Fiddles was and why his Honor the Mayor should sit up
+      and think; why, too, the miniature of the young man&mdash;and he <i>was</i>
+      young and remarkably good-looking, as I well knew, having seen the picture
+      many times before on his mantel&mdash;should now be suspended below the
+      elk&rsquo;s head, would come out in time if I loosened my ear-flaps and buttoned
+      up my tongue, but not if I reversed the operation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, you young fraud,&rdquo; he went on&mdash;the position of both head and
+      miniature pleased him now&mdash;&ldquo;do you remember the time I hauled you out
+      from under the table when the hucksters were making a door-mat of your
+      back; and the time I washed you off at the pump, and what you said to the
+      gendarme, and&mdash;No, you never remembered anything. You&rsquo;d rather sprawl
+      out on the grass, or make eyes at Gretchen or the landlady&mdash;fifty, if
+      she was a day&mdash;maybe fifty-five, and yet she fell in love&rdquo; (this last
+      was addressed directly to me; it had been reminiscent before that, fired
+      at the ceiling, at the hangings in his sumptuous studio, or the fire
+      crackling oil the hearth), &ldquo;fell in love with that tramp&mdash;a boy of
+      twenty-two, mind you&mdash;Ah! but what a rounder he was! Such a trim,
+      well-knit figure; so light and nimble on his feet; such a pair of eyes in
+      his head, leaking tears one minute and flashing hate the next. And his
+      mouth! I tried, but I couldn&rsquo;t paint it&mdash;nobody could&mdash;so I did
+      his profile; one of those curving, seductive mouths you sometimes see on a
+      man, that quivers when he smiles, the teeth gleaming between the moist
+      lips.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had lassoed a chair with my foot by this time, had dragged it nearer the
+      fire, and had settled myself in another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Funny name, though for a German,&rdquo; I remarked carelessly&mdash;quite as if
+      the fellow&rsquo;s patronymic had already formed part of the discussion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Had to call him something for short,&rdquo; Marny retorted. &ldquo;Feudels-Shimmer
+      was what they called him in Rosengarten&mdash;Wilhelm Feudels-Shimmer. I
+      tried all of it at first, then I bit off the Shimmer, and then the
+      Wilhelm, and ran him along on Feudels for a while, then it got down to
+      Fuddles, and at last to Fiddles, and there it stuck. Just fitted him, too.
+      All he wanted was a bow, and I furnished that&mdash;enough of the devil&rsquo;s
+      resin to set him going&mdash;and out would roll jigs, lullabys,
+      fandangoes, serenades&mdash;anything you wanted: anything to which his
+      mood tempted him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Marny had settled into his chair now, and had stretched his fat legs
+      toward the blaze, his middle distance completely filling the space between
+      the arms. He had pushed himself over many a ledge with this same pair of
+      legs and on this same rotundity, his hand on his Winchester, before his
+      first ball crashed through the shoulder of the big elk whose glass eyes
+      were now looking down upon Fiddles and ourselves&mdash;and he would do it
+      again on another big-horn when the season opened. You wouldn&rsquo;t have
+      thought so had you dropped in upon us and scanned his waist measure, but
+      then, of course, you don&rsquo;t know Marny.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again Marny&rsquo;s eyes rested for a moment on the miniature; then he went on:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We were about broke when I painted it,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;There was a fair of
+      some sort in the village, and I got an old frame for half a mark in a
+      pawnshop, borrowed a coat from Fritz, the stableman, squeezed Fiddles into
+      it, stuck a student&rsquo;s cap on his head, made it look a hundred years old&mdash;the
+      frame was all of that&mdash;and tried to sell it as a portrait of a
+      &lsquo;Gentleman of the Last Century,&rsquo; but it wouldn&rsquo;t work. Fiddles&rsquo;s laugh
+      gave it away. &lsquo;Looks like you,&rsquo; the old man said. &lsquo;Yes, it&rsquo;s my brother,&rsquo; 
+      he blurted out, slapping the dealer on the back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where did you pick Fiddles up?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nowhere,&rdquo; answered Marny; &ldquo;he picked me up. That is, the gendarme did who
+      had him by the coat collar.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;This fellow insists you know him,&rsquo; said the officer of the law. &lsquo;He says
+      that he is honest and that this rabbit&rsquo;&mdash;here he pointed to a pair of
+      long ears sticking out of a game bag&mdash;&lsquo;is one he shot with the Mayor
+      this morning. Is this true?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now if there is one thing, old man,&rdquo; continued Marny, &ldquo;that gets me hot
+      around the collar, it is to see a brother sportsman arrested for killing
+      anything that can fly, run, or swim. So I rose from my sketching stool and
+      looked him over: his eyes&mdash;not a bit of harm in &lsquo;em; his loose
+      necktie thrown over one shoulder; trim waist, and so on down to the
+      leather leggings buttoned to his knees. If he was a poacher and subject to
+      the law, he certainly was the most picturesque specimen I had met in many
+      a day. I had, of course, never laid eyes on him before, having been but a
+      few days in the village, but that made the situation all the more
+      interesting. To rescue a friend would be commonplace, to rescue a stranger
+      smacked of adventure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I uncovered my head and bowed to the ground. &lsquo;His Honor shoots almost
+      every day, your Excellency,&rsquo; I said to the gendarme. &lsquo;I have seen him
+      frequently with his friends&mdash;this young man is no doubt one of them&mdash;Let&mdash;me&mdash;think&mdash;was
+      it this morning, or yesterday, I met the Mayor? It is at best a very small
+      rabbit&rsquo;&mdash;here I fingered the head and ears&mdash;&lsquo;and would probably
+      have died of hunger anyway. However, if any claim should be made by the
+      farmer I will pay the damages&rsquo;&mdash;this with a lordly air, and I with
+      only a week&rsquo;s board in my pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The gendarme released his hold and stood looking at the young fellow. The
+      day was hot and the village lock-up two miles away. That the rabbit was
+      small and the Mayor an inveterate sportsman were also undeniable facts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Next time,&rsquo; he said sententiously, with a scowl, &lsquo;do you let his Honor
+      carry the game home in his own bag,&rsquo; and he walked away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you just ought to have seen Fiddles skip around when a turn in the
+      road shut out the cocked hat and cross-belts, and heard him pour out his
+      thanks. &lsquo;His name was Wilhelm, he cried out; it had only been by chance
+      that he had got separated from his friends. Where did I live? Would I let
+      him give me the rabbit for a stew for my dinner? Was I the painter who had
+      come to the inn? If so he had heard of me. Could he and his friends call
+      upon me that night? He would never forget my kindness. What was the use of
+      being a gentleman if you couldn&rsquo;t help another gentleman out of a scrape?
+      As for Herr Rabbit&mdash;the poor little Herr Rabbit-here he stroked his
+      fur&mdash;what more honorable end than gracing the table of the Honorable
+      Painter? Ah, these dogs of the law&mdash;when would they learn not to
+      meddle with things that did not concern them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And did Fiddles come to your inn, Marny?&rdquo; I asked, merely as a prod to
+      keep him going.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, a week later, and with the same gendarme. The cobbler in the
+      village, who sat all day long pegging at his shoes, and who, it seemed,
+      was watch-goose for the whole village and knew the movements of every
+      inhabitant, man, woman, and child, and who for some reason hated Fiddles,
+      on being interviewed by the gendarme, had stated positively that the Mayor
+      had <i>not</i> passed his corner with his gun and four dogs on the day of
+      Fiddles&rsquo;s arrest. This being the case, the gendarme had rearrested the
+      culprit, and would have taken him at once to the lock-up had not Fiddles
+      threatened the officer with false arrest. Would the Herr Painter accompany
+      the officer and himself to the house of the Mayor and settle the matter as
+      to whether his Honor was or was not out hunting on that particular
+      morning?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All this time Fiddles was looking about the dining-room of the inn,
+      taking in the supper-table, the rows of mugs, especially the landlady, who
+      was frightened half out of her wits by Cocked Hat&rsquo;s presence, and more
+      especially still little Gretchen&mdash;such a plump, rosy-cheeked,
+      blue-eyed little Dutch girl&mdash;with two Marguerite pig-tails down her
+      back. (Gretchen served the beer, and was the life of the place. &lsquo;Poor
+      young man!&rsquo; she said to the landlady, who had by this time come to the
+      same conclusion&mdash;&lsquo;and he is so good-looking and with such lovely
+      eyes.&rsquo;)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When we got to the Mayor&rsquo;s the old fellow was asleep in a big armchair,
+      his pipe out, his legs far apart&mdash;a keg-shaped kind of a man, with a
+      head flattened on his shoulders like a stove-lid, who said &lsquo;Ach Gott&rsquo; 
+      every five minutes, and spluttered when he talked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I went in first, leaving the two on the porch until I should send for
+      them. I didn&rsquo;t know how things were going to turn out and had become a
+      little anxious. I had run up from Munich for a few weeks&rsquo; outdoor work and
+      wanted to stay out, not behind iron bars for abetting crime.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Your Supreme Highness,&rsquo; I began, &lsquo;I have heard of your great prowess as
+      a sportsman, and so I wanted to pay my respects. I, too, am a shootist&mdash;an
+      American shootist.&rsquo; Here I launched out on our big game (I had been six
+      months in the Rockies before I came abroad, and knew what I was talking
+      about). He was wide awake by this time and was listening. Dropping into
+      the chair which he had drawn up for me, I told him of our elk&mdash;&lsquo;As
+      big as horses, your Honor&rsquo;; of our mountain lions&mdash;savage beasts that
+      could climb trees and fall upon the defenseless; of our catamounts, deer,
+      wolves, bears, foxes&mdash;all these we killed without molestation from
+      anybody; I told him how all American sportsmen were like the Nimrods of
+      old. How galling, then, for a true shootist to be misunderstood, decried,
+      denounced, and arrested for so insignificant a beastie as a rabbit! This
+      indignity my very dear friend, Herr Wilhelm Fuedels-Shimmer, had suffered&mdash;a
+      most estimable young man&mdash;careless, perhaps, in his interpretation of
+      the law, but who would not be&mdash;that is, what sportsman would not be?
+      I had in Wilhelm&rsquo;s defense not only backed up his story, but I had gone so
+      far as to hazard the opinion to the officer of that law, that it was not
+      on some uncertain Tuesday or Friday or Saturday, but on that very
+      Wednesday, that his Supreme Highness had been wont to follow with his four
+      accomplished dogs the tracks of the nimble cotton-tail. Would his
+      Highness, therefore, be good enough to concentrate his giant brain on his
+      past life and fish from out his memory the exact day on which he last
+      hunted? While that was going on I would excuse myself long enough to bring
+      in the alleged criminal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fiddles stepped in with the easy grace of a courtier accustomed to
+      meeting a Mayor every day of his life, and, after a confirmatory wink from
+      me, boldly asserted that he had followed behind his Honor&mdash;had really
+      assisted in driving the game his way. His Honor might not remember his
+      face, but he surely must remember that his Honorable Honor had
+      extraordinarily good luck that day. The rabbit in controversy&mdash;a very
+      small, quite a baby rabbit&mdash;was really one his Honorable and Most
+      Supreme Highness had himself wounded, and which he, Fiddles, had finished.
+      He was bringing it to his Honor when the estimable gendarme had stopped
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;And what day was that?&rsquo; interrupted the Mayor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;On last Wednesday.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;The cobbler said it was Tuesday,&rsquo; insisted Cocked Hat. &lsquo;On this point
+      hangs the case. Now on which day did your Honor take the field with your
+      dogs?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was a dead silence, during which the Mayor&rsquo;s eyes rested on the
+      culprit. Fiddles returned the look, head up, a smile on his lips that
+      would have fooled the devil himself. Then his Honor turned to me and said:
+      &lsquo;My memory is not always very good, but this time the cobbler&rsquo;s&mdash;who
+      is a meddlesome person&mdash;is even more defective. Yes, I think it quite
+      possible I was hunting on last Wednesday. I can sympathize with the young
+      man as to the size of the rabbit. They are running very small this year.
+      My decision, therefore, is that you can let the young man go.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, but that was a great night at the inn. Gretchen was so happy that she
+      spilled the beer down the apothecary&rsquo;s back and the landlady could talk of
+      nothing but Fiddles&rsquo;s release. But the real fun began an hour later, when
+      shouts for the Herr Mahler, interwoven with the music of a concertina,
+      made me step to the door. Outside, in the road, stood four young men&mdash;all
+      pals of Fiddles, all bareheaded, and all carrying lanterns. They had come
+      to crown the American with a gold chaplet cut from gilt paper, after which
+      I was to be conducted to the public house where bumpers of beer were to be
+      drunk until the last pfennig was spent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On hearing this, Gretchen, the landlady, the apothecary, the hostler, and
+      the stable-boy&mdash;not the cobbler, you may be sure&mdash;burst forth
+      with cries of: &lsquo;Hip! Hip!&mdash;Hock! Donder und Blitzen!&rsquo; or whatever
+      they do yell when they are mad with joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then the landlady broke out in a fresh place: &lsquo;No public-house for you!
+      This is my treat! All of you come inside. Gretchen, get the mugs full&mdash;all
+      the mugs&mdash;Sit down! Sit down! The Herr Painter at the top of the
+      table, the Herr Feudels-Shimmer on the right; all the other Herrs anywhere
+      in between. Hock the Mahler! Hock the Hunter! Hock everybody but the
+      cobbler!&rsquo; Here a groan went round. &lsquo;Hock! Hip and Blather skitzen for the
+      good and honorable Mayor, who always loves the people!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;And Hock! too, for the honorable and good gendarme!&rsquo; laughed Fiddles,
+      dropping into his chair. &lsquo;But for him I would be in the lock-up instead of
+      basking in the smiles of two such lovely women as the fascinating landlady
+      and the bewitching Gretchen.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After that Fiddles and I became inseparable. That I hadn&rsquo;t a mark over my
+      expenses to give him in return for his services&mdash;and there was
+      nothing he would not do for me&mdash;made no difference. He wouldn&rsquo;t take
+      any wages; all he wanted was to carry my traps, to sit by me while I
+      worked; wake me up in the morning, be the last to wish me good night. Soon
+      it became a settled fact that, while the landlady fed two mouths&mdash;mine
+      and Fiddles&rsquo;s&mdash;and provided two beds&mdash;Fiddles in the garret&mdash;my
+      single board bill covered all the items. &lsquo;That is the Herr Painter and his
+      servant,&rsquo; she would say to inquiring strangers who watched us depart for a
+      day&rsquo;s work, Fiddles carrying my easel and traps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This went on for weeks&mdash;might have gone on all summer but for the
+      events which followed a day&rsquo;s outing. We had spent the morning sketching,
+      and on our way home had stood opposite a wide-open gate&mdash;a great
+      baronial affair with a coat of arms in twisted iron, the whole flanked by
+      two royal lamps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Step inside, Master,&rsquo; said Fiddles. &lsquo;It is hot, and there is a seat
+      under that tree; there we will get cool.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;It&rsquo;s against the rules, Fiddles, and I don&rsquo;t know these people.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Then I&rsquo;ll introduce you.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was half-way across the grass by this time and within reach of a
+      wooden bench, when an old lady stepped out from behind a tree&mdash;a real
+      old aristocrat in black silk and white ruffles. She had a book in her
+      hand, and had evidently been reading.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You should have seen the bow Fiddles gave her, and the courtesy she
+      returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Madame the Baroness,&rsquo; said the rascal, with an irradiating smile as I
+      approached them, &lsquo;has been good enough to ask us to accompany her to the
+      house. Permit me, Madame, to present my friend, a distinguished American
+      painter who is visiting our country, and who was so entranced at the
+      beauty of your grounds and the regal splendor of your gate and château
+      that rather than disappoint him&mdash;&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;You are both doubly welcome, gentlemen,&rsquo; &lsquo;This way, please,&rsquo; replied the
+      old lady with a dip of her aristocratic head; and before I knew it we were
+      seated in an oak-panelled dining-room with two servants in livery tumbling
+      over each other in their efforts to find the particular wine best suited
+      to our palates.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fiddles sipped his Rudesheimer with the air of a connoisseur, blinking at
+      the ceiling now and then after the manner of expert wine tasters, and
+      complimenting the old lady meanwhile on the quality of the vintage. I
+      confined myself to a glass of sherry and a biscuit, while Fiddles, rising
+      from his seat, later on, stood enraptured before this portrait and that,
+      commenting on their coloring, ending by drawing an ancient book from the
+      library and going into ecstasies over the binding and type.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On our way home to the inn from the chateau there was, so far as I could
+      see, no change in Fiddles&rsquo;s manner. Neither was his speech or gait at all
+      affected by the bottle of Rudesheimer (and he managed to get away with it
+      all). I mention this because it is vitally important to what follows. Only
+      once did he seem at all excited, and that was when he passed the cobbler&rsquo;s
+      corner. But then he was always excited when he passed the cobbler seated
+      at work&mdash;so much so sometimes that I have seen him shake his fist at
+      him. To-day he merely tightened his jaw, stopped for a moment as if
+      determined to step in and have it out with him (the cobbler, I afterward
+      found out, was to leave the village for good the next day, his trade
+      having fallen off, owing to his being so unpopular), and then, as if
+      changing his mind, followed along after me, muttering: &lsquo;Spy&mdash;informer&mdash;beast&mdash;&rsquo; 
+      as I had often heard him do before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Judge of my astonishment then, when, an hour later, Gretchen came running
+      into my room wringing her hands&mdash;I had caught him kissing her the
+      night before&mdash;and burst out with:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;He is under the table&mdash;the huckster&rsquo;s feet on him&mdash;He is there
+      like a dog&mdash;Oh, it is dreadful! Mine Herr&mdash;won&rsquo;t you come?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Who is under the table?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Wilhelm.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Where?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;At the public-house.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;How do you know?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Fritz, the stable-boy has just seen him.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;What&rsquo;s the matter with him?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gretchen hung her head, and the tears streamed down her cheeks,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;He is&mdash;he is&mdash;Oh, Meinherr&mdash;it is not the beer&mdash;nobody
+      ever gets that way with our beer&mdash;it is something he&mdash;&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&rsquo; Drunk!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Yes, dead drunk, and under the table like a hog in the mud&mdash;Oh, my
+      poor Wilhelm! Oh, who has been so wicked to you! Oh! Oh!&rsquo; and she ran from
+      the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I started on the run, Gretchen and the good landlady close behind. If the
+      Rudesheimer had upset Fiddles it had worked very slowly; maybe it had
+      revived an old conquered thirst, and the cheap cognac at the public-house
+      was the result. That he was not a man of humble birth, nor one without
+      home refinements, I had long since divined. Had I not suspected it before,
+      his manner in presenting me to the old Baroness, and his behavior in the
+      dining-hall, especially toward the servants, would have opened my eyes.
+      How then could such a man in an hour become so besotted a brute?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And yet every word of Gretchen&rsquo;s story was true. Not only was Fiddles
+      drunk, soggy, helplessly drunk, but from all accounts he was in that same
+      condition when he had staggered into the place, and, falling over a table,
+      had rolled himself against the wall. There he had lain, out of the way,
+      except when some dram-drinking driver&rsquo;s heavy cowhide boots had made a
+      doormat of his yielding body&mdash;not an unusual occurrence, by the way,
+      at the roadside taverns frequented by the lower classes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We worked over him, calling him by name, propping him up against the
+      wall, only to have him sag back; and finally, at the suggestion of one of
+      the truckmen&mdash;he was in a half-comatose state really from the liquor
+      he had absorbed&mdash;we carried him out into the stable yard, and I held
+      his shapely head, with its beautiful hair a-frowze, while a stream of cold
+      water from the pump struck the back of his head and neck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The poor fellow stared around wildly as the chill reached his nerves and
+      tried to put his arm around me, then he toppled over again and lay like a
+      log. Nothing was left but to pick him up bodily and carry him home; that I
+      did with Fritz&rsquo;s, the stable-boy&rsquo;s, help, Gretchen carrying his cap, and
+      the landlady following behind with his coat, which I had stripped off when
+      his head went under the pump. The bystanders didn&rsquo;t care&mdash;one drunken
+      man more or less made no difference&mdash;but both of the women were in
+      tears, &lsquo;Poor Wilhelm! Somebody had drugged him; some wicked men had played
+      a trick, etc., etc. I thought of the Rudesheimer, and then dismissed it
+      from my mind. Something stronger than Rhine wine had wrought this change.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We laid him flat out on a cot in a room on the second floor, and dragged
+      it near the open window so he could get the air from the garden, and left
+      him, I taking the precaution to lock the door to prevent his staggering
+      downstairs and breaking his neck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The next morning, before I was dressed, in fact, a row downstairs brought
+      me into the hall outside my door, where I stood listening over the
+      banister. Then came the tramp of men, and three gendarmes mounted the
+      steps and halted at Fiddles&rsquo;s door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bang! bang! went the hilt of a short-sword on the panel. &lsquo;Open, in the
+      name of the law.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;What for?&rsquo; I demanded. Getting drunk was not a crime in Rosengarten,
+      especially when the offender had been tucked away in bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;For smashing the face of a citizen&mdash;a worthy cobbler&mdash;the
+      night before, at the hour of eight,&mdash;just as he was closing his
+      shutters. The cobbler lay insensible until he had been found by the
+      patrol. He had, however, recognized Fuedels-Shimmer as the&mdash;&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;But, gentleman, Herr Fiddles was dead drunk at eight o&rsquo;clock; he hasn&rsquo;t
+      stirred out of the room since. Here is the key,&rsquo; and I unlocked the door
+      and we all stepped in, Gretchen and the landlady close behind. They had
+      told the officers the same story downstairs, but they would not believe
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At the intrusion, Fiddles rose to a sitting posture and stared
+      wonderingly. He was sober enough now, but his heavy sleep still showed
+      about his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The production of the key, my positive statement, backed by the women,
+      and Fiddles&rsquo;s wondering gaze, brought the gendarmes to a halt for a
+      moment, but his previous arrest was against him, and so the boy was
+      finally ordered to put on his clothes and accompany them to the lock-up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I got into the rest of my duds, and began waving the American flag and
+      ordering out gunboats. I insisted that the cobbler had lied before in
+      accusing Fiddles of shooting the rabbit, as was well known, and he would
+      lie again. Fiddles was my friend, my servant&mdash;a youth of
+      incorruptible character. It is true he had been intoxicated the night
+      before, and that I had in consequence put him to bed, but that was
+      entirely due to the effects of some very rare wine which he had drunk at a
+      luncheon given in his honor and mine by our very dear friend the Baroness
+      Morghenslitz, who had entertained us at her princely home. This, with the
+      heat of the day, had been, etc., etc.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The mention of the distinguished woman&rsquo;s name caused another halt.
+      Further consultation ensued, resulting in the decision that we all adjourn
+      to the office of the Mayor. If, after hearing our alibi&mdash;one beyond
+      dispute, and submitting our evidence (Exhibit A, the key, which they must
+      admit exactly fitted the lock of Fiddles&rsquo;s bedroom door), his Honor could
+      still be made to believe the perjured testimony of the cobbler&mdash;Fiddles&rsquo;s
+      enemy, as had been abundantly proved in the previous rabbit case, when the
+      same mendacious half-soler and heeler had informed on my friend&mdash;well
+      and good; but if not, then, the resources of my Government would be set in
+      motion for the young man&rsquo;s release.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Mayor&rsquo;s first words were: &lsquo;Ah, you have come again, is it, Meinherr
+      Marny; and it is the same young man, too, Herr Fuddles. Well, well, it is
+      much trouble that you have.&rsquo; (I&rsquo;d give it to you in German, old man, but
+      you wouldn&rsquo;t understand it&mdash;this to me in a sort of an aside.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fiddles never moved a muscle of his face. You would have thought that he
+      was the least interested man in the room. Only once did his features
+      relax, and that was when the cobbler arrived with his head swathed in
+      bandages. Then a grim smile flickered about the corners of his mouth, as
+      if fate had at last overtaken his enemy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course, the Mayor dismissed the case. Gretchen&rsquo;s tearful, pleading
+      face, the landlady&rsquo;s positive statement of helping put the dear young
+      gentleman to bed; the key and the use I had made of it; the reluctant
+      testimony of the officers, who had tried the knob and could not get in
+      until I had turned the lock, together with the well-known animosity of the
+      cobbler (and all because Fiddles had ridiculed his workmanship on a pair
+      of shoes the boy had left with him to be half-soled), turned the tide in
+      the lad&rsquo;s favor and sent us all back to the inn rejoicing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some weeks later Fiddles came into my room, locked the door, pulled down
+      the shades, looked under the bed, in the closet and behind the curtains,
+      and sat down in front of me. (I had to return to Munich the next day, and
+      this would be our last night together.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have been very good to me, Master,&rsquo; he said with a choke in his
+      voice. &lsquo;I love people who are good to me; I hate those who are not. I have
+      been that way all my life&mdash;it would have been better for me if I
+      hadn&rsquo;t.&rsquo; Then he leaned forward and took my hand. &lsquo;I want you to do
+      something more for me; I want you to promise me you&rsquo;ll take me home to
+      America with you when you go. I&rsquo;m tired dodging these people. I want to
+      get somewhere where I can shoot and hunt and fish, and nobody can stop me.
+      I snared that rabbit; been snaring them all summer; going to keep on
+      snaring them after you&rsquo;re gone. I love to hunt them&mdash;love the fun of
+      it&mdash;born that way. And I&rsquo;ve got something else to tell you&rsquo;&mdash;here
+      a triumphant smile flashed over his face&mdash;&lsquo;I smashed that cobbler!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;You, Fiddles!&rsquo; I laughed. &lsquo;Why, you were dead drunk, and I put you under
+      the pump and&mdash;&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Yes, I know you thought so&mdash;I intended you should. I heard every
+      word that you said, and what little Gretchen said&mdash;dear little
+      Gretchen, I had studied it all out, and to play drunk seemed the best way
+      to get at the brute, and it was; they&rsquo;d have proved it on me if I hadn&rsquo;t
+      fooled them that way&mdash;&rsquo; and again his eyes snapped and his face
+      flushed as the humor of the situation rose in his mind. &lsquo;You&rsquo;ll forgive
+      me, won&rsquo;t you? Don&rsquo;t tell Gretchen.&rsquo; The light in his eyes was gone now.
+      I&rsquo;d rather she&rsquo;d think me drunk than vulgar, and it was vulgar, and maybe
+      cowardly, to hit him, but I couldn&rsquo;t help that either, and I&rsquo;m not sorry I
+      did it.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;But I locked you in,&rsquo; I persisted. Was this some invention of his
+      fertile imagination, or was it true?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Yes, you locked the door,&rsquo; he answered, as he broke into a subdued
+      laugh. &lsquo;I dropped from the window sill when it got dark&mdash;it wasn&rsquo;t
+      high, about fifteen feet, and the waterspout helped&mdash;ran down the
+      back way, gave him a crack as he opened the door, and was back in bed by
+      the help of the same spout before he had come to. He was leaving the next
+      day and it was my only chance. I wasn&rsquo;t out of the room five minutes&mdash;maybe
+      less. You&rsquo;ll forgive me that too, won&rsquo;t you?&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Marny stopped and looked into the smouldering coals. For a brief instant
+      he did not speak. Then he rose from his chair, crossed the room, took the
+      miniature from the wall where he had hung it and looked at it steadily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a delightful devil you were, Fiddles. And you were so human.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he living yet?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, he died in Gretchen&rsquo;s arms. I kept my promise, and two months later
+      went back to the village to bring him to America with me, but a forester&rsquo;s
+      bullet had ended him. It was on the Baroness&rsquo;s grounds, too. He wouldn&rsquo;t
+      halt and the guard fired. Think of killing such an adorable savage&mdash;and
+      all because the blood of the primeval man boiled in his veins. Oh, it was
+      damnable!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you know nothing more about him? Where he came from?&rdquo; The story had
+      strangely moved me. &ldquo;Were there no letters or notebooks? Nothing to show
+      who he really was?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only an empty envelope postmarked &lsquo;Berlin.&rsquo; This had reached him the day
+      before, and was sealed with a coat of arms in violet wax.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <div style="height: 6em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
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+</html>
diff --git a/23698.txt b/23698.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5b7d94c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/23698.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,938 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fiddles, by F. Hopkinson Smith
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Fiddles
+       1909
+
+Author: F. Hopkinson Smith
+
+Release Date: December 3, 2007 [EBook #23698]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIDDLES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+FIDDLES
+
+By F. Hopkinson Smith
+
+1909
+
+
+This is Marny's story, not mine. He had a hammer in his hand at the time
+and a tack between his teeth.
+
+"Going to hang Fiddles right under the old fellow's head," he burst out.
+"That's where he belongs. I'd have given a ten-acre if he could have
+drawn a bead on that elk himself. Fiddles behind a .44 Winchester
+and that old buck browsing to windward"--and he nodded at the elk's
+head--"would have made the village Mayor sit up and think. What a
+picturesque liar you are, Fiddles"--here the point of the tack
+was pressed into the plaster with Marny's fat thumb--"and what a
+good-for-nothing, breezy, lovable vagabond"--(Bang! Bang! Hammer at play
+now)--"you could be when you tried. There!"
+
+Marny stepped back and took in the stuffed head and wide-branched
+antlers of the magnificent elk (five feet six from skull to tips) and
+the small, partly faded miniature of a young man in a student cap and
+high-collared coat.
+
+I waited and let him run on. It is never wise to interrupt Marny. He
+will lose the thread of his talk if you do, and though he starts off
+immediately on another lead, and one, perhaps equally graphic, he
+has left you suspended in mid-air so far as the tale you were getting
+interested in is concerned. Who Fiddles was and why his Honor the Mayor
+should sit up and think; why, too, the miniature of the young man--and
+he _was_ young and remarkably good-looking, as I well knew, having seen
+the picture many times before on his mantel--should now be suspended
+below the elk's head, would come out in time if I loosened my ear-flaps
+and buttoned up my tongue, but not if I reversed the operation.
+
+"Ah, you young fraud," he went on--the position of both head and
+miniature pleased him now--"do you remember the time I hauled you out
+from under the table when the hucksters were making a door-mat of your
+back; and the time I washed you off at the pump, and what you said
+to the gendarme, and--No, you never remembered anything. You'd
+rather sprawl out on the grass, or make eyes at Gretchen or the
+landlady--fifty, if she was a day--maybe fifty-five, and yet she fell in
+love" (this last was addressed directly to me; it had been reminiscent
+before that, fired at the ceiling, at the hangings in his sumptuous
+studio, or the fire crackling oil the hearth), "fell in love with that
+tramp--a boy of twenty-two,'mind you--Ah! but what a rounder he was!
+Such a trim, well-knit figure; so light and nimble on his feet; such a
+pair of eyes in his head, leaking tears one minute and flashing hate the
+next. And his mouth! I tried, but I couldn't paint it--nobody could--so
+I did his profile; one of those curving, seductive mouths you sometimes
+see on a man, that quivers when he smiles, the teeth gleaming between
+the moist lips."
+
+I had lassoed a chair with my foot by this time, had dragged it nearer
+the fire, and had settled myself in another.
+
+"Funny name, though for a German," I remarked carelessly--quite as if
+the fellow's patronymic had already formed part of the discussion.
+
+"Had to call him something for short," Marny retorted. "Feudels-Shimmer
+was what they called him in Rosengarten--Wilhelm Feudels-Shimmer. I
+tried all of it at first, then I bit off the Shimmer, and then the
+Wilhelm, and ran him along on Feudels for a while, then it got down to
+Fuddles, and at last to Fiddles, and there it stuck. Just fitted him,
+too. All he wanted was a bow, and I furnished that--enough of the
+devil's resin to set him going--and out would roll jigs, lullabys,
+fandangoes, serenades--anything you wanted: anything to which his mood
+tempted him."
+
+Marny had settled into his chair now, and had stretched his fat legs
+toward the blaze, his middle distance completely filling the space
+between the arms. He had pushed himself over many a ledge with this same
+pair of legs and on this same rotundity, his hand on his Winchester,
+before his first ball crashed through the shoulder of the big elk whose
+glass eyes were now looking down upon Fiddles and ourselves--and he
+would do it again on another big-horn when the season opened. You
+wouldn't have thought so had you dropped in upon us and scanned his
+waist measure, but then, of course, you don't know Marny.
+
+Again Marny's eyes rested for a moment on the miniature; then he went
+on:
+
+"We were about broke when I painted it," he said. "There was a fair of
+some sort in the village, and I got an old frame for half a mark in a
+pawnshop, borrowed a coat from Fritz, the stableman, squeezed Fiddles
+into it, stuck a student's cap on his head, made it look a hundred years
+old--the frame was all of that--and tried to sell it as a portrait of a
+'Gentleman of the Last Century,' but it wouldn't work. Fiddles's
+laugh gave it away. 'Looks like you,' the old man said. 'Yes, it's my
+brother,' he blurted out, slapping the dealer on the back."
+
+"Where did you pick Fiddles up?" I asked.
+
+"Nowhere," answered Marny; "he picked me up. That is, the gendarme did
+who had him by the coat collar."
+
+"'This fellow insists you know him,' said the officer of the law. 'He
+says that he is honest and that this rabbit'--here he pointed to a pair
+of long ears sticking out of a game bag--'is one he shot with the Mayor
+this morning. Is this true?'
+
+"Now if there is one thing, old man," continued Marny, "that gets me hot
+around the collar, it is to see a brother sportsman arrested for killing
+anything that can fly, run, or swim. So I rose from my sketching stool
+and looked him over: his eyes--not a bit of harm in 'em; his loose
+necktie thrown over one shoulder; trim waist, and so on down to the
+leather leggings buttoned to his knees. If he was a poacher and subject
+to the law, he certainly was the most picturesque specimen I had met in
+many a day. I had, of course, never laid eyes on him before, having been
+but a few days in the village, but that made the situation all the
+more interesting. To rescue a friend would be commonplace, to rescue a
+stranger smacked of adventure.
+
+"I uncovered my head and bowed to the ground. 'His Honor shoots almost
+every day, your Excellency,' I said to the gendarme. 'I have seen
+him frequently with his friends--this young man is no doubt one of
+them--Let--me--think--was it this morning, or yesterday, I met the
+Mayor? It is at best a very small rabbit'--here I fingered the head and
+ears--'and would probably have died of hunger anyway. However, if any
+claim should be made by the farmer I will pay the damages'--this with a
+lordly air, and I with only a week's board in my pocket.
+
+"The gendarme released his hold and stood looking at the young fellow.
+The day was hot and the village lock-up two miles away. That the rabbit
+was small and the Mayor an inveterate sportsman were also undeniable
+facts.
+
+"'Next time,' he said sententiously, with a scowl, 'do you let his Honor
+carry the game home in his own bag,' and he walked away.
+
+"Oh, you just ought to have seen Fiddles skip around when a turn in the
+road shut out the cocked hat and cross-belts, and heard him pour out his
+thanks. 'His name was Wilhelm, he cried out; it had only been by chance
+that he had got separated from his friends. Where did I live? Would I
+let him give me the rabbit for a stew for my dinner? Was I the painter
+who had come to the inn? If so he had heard of me. Could he and his
+friends call upon me that night? He would never forget my kindness. What
+was the use of being a gentleman if you couldn't help another gentleman
+out of a scrape? As for Herr Rabbit--the poor little Herr Rabbit-here he
+stroked his fur--what more honorable end than gracing the table of the
+Honorable Painter? Ah, these dogs of the law--when would they learn not
+to meddle with things that did not concern them?"
+
+"And did Fiddles come to your inn, Marny?" I asked, merely as a prod to
+keep him going.
+
+"Yes, a week later, and with the same gendarme. The cobbler in the
+village, who sat all day long pegging at his shoes, and who, it seemed,
+was watch-goose for the whole village and knew the movements of every
+inhabitant, man, woman, and child, and who for some reason hated
+Fiddles, on being interviewed by the gendarme, had stated positively
+that the Mayor had _not_ passed his corner with his gun and four dogs
+on the day of Fiddles's arrest. This being the case, the gendarme had
+rearrested the culprit, and would have taken him at once to the lock-up
+had not Fiddles threatened the officer with false arrest. Would the Herr
+Painter accompany the officer and himself to the house of the Mayor and
+settle the matter as to whether his Honor was or was not out hunting on
+that particular morning?
+
+"All this time Fiddles was looking about the dining-room of the inn,
+taking in the supper-table, the rows of mugs, especially the landlady,
+who was frightened half out of her wits by Cocked Hat's presence, and
+more especially still little Gretchen--such a plump, rosy-cheeked,
+blue-eyed little Dutch girl--with two Marguerite pig-tails down her
+back. (Gretchen served the beer, and was the life of the place. 'Poor
+young man!' she said to the landlady, who had by this time come to the
+same conclusion--'and he is so good-looking and with such lovely eyes.')
+
+"When we got to the Mayor's the old fellow was asleep in a big armchair,
+his pipe out, his legs far apart--a keg-shaped kind of a man, with a
+head flattened on his shoulders like a stove-lid, who said 'Ach Gott'
+every five minutes, and spluttered when he talked.
+
+"I went in first, leaving the two on the porch until I should send for
+them. I didn't know how things were going to turn out and had become a
+little anxious. I had run up from Munich for a few weeks' outdoor work
+and wanted to stay out, not behind iron bars for abetting crime.
+
+"'Your Supreme Highness,' I began, 'I have heard of your great prowess
+as a sportsman, and so I wanted to pay my respects. I, too, am a
+shootist--an American shootist.' Here I launched out on our big game (I
+had been six months in the Rockies before I came abroad, and knew what
+I was talking about). He was wide awake by this time and was listening.
+Dropping into the chair which he had drawn up for me, I told him of
+our elk--'As big as horses, your Honor'; of our mountain lions--savage
+beasts that could climb trees and fall upon the defenseless; of our
+catamounts, deer, wolves, bears, foxes--all these we killed without
+molestation from anybody; I told him how all American sportsmen were
+like the Nimrods of old. How galling, then, for a true shootist to be
+misunderstood, decried, denounced, and arrested for so insignificant a
+beastie as a rabbit! This indignity my very dear friend, Herr Wilhelm
+Fuedels-Shimmer, had suffered--a most estimable young man--careless,
+perhaps, in his interpretation of the law, but who would not be--that
+is, what sportsman would not be? I had in Wilhelm's defense not only
+backed up his story, but I had gone so far as to hazard the opinion to
+the officer of that law, that it was not on some uncertain Tuesday
+or Friday or Saturday, but on that very Wednesday, that his Supreme
+Highness had been wont to follow with his four accomplished dogs the
+tracks of the nimble cotton-tail. Would his Highness, therefore, be good
+enough to concentrate his giant brain on his past life and fish from out
+his memory the exact day on which he last hunted? While that was going
+on I would excuse myself long enough to bring in the alleged criminal.
+
+"Fiddles stepped in with the easy grace of a courtier accustomed to
+meeting a Mayor every day of his life, and, after a confirmatory wink
+from me, boldly asserted that he had followed behind his Honor--had
+really assisted in driving the game his way. His Honor might not
+remember his face, but he surely must remember that his Honorable Honor
+had extraordinarily good luck that day. The rabbit in controversy--a
+very small, quite a baby rabbit--was really one his Honorable and
+Most Supreme Highness had himself wounded, and which he, Fiddles, had
+finished. He was bringing it to his Honor when the estimable gendarme
+had stopped him.
+
+"'And what day was that?' interrupted the Mayor.
+
+"'On last Wednesday.'
+
+"'The cobbler said it was Tuesday,' insisted Cocked Hat. 'On this point
+hangs the case. Now on which day did your Honor take the field with your
+dogs?'
+
+"There was a dead silence, during which the Mayor's eyes rested on the
+culprit. Fiddles returned the look, head up, a smile on his lips that
+would have fooled the devil himself. Then his Honor turned to me
+and said: 'My memory is not always very good, but this time the
+cobbler's--who is a meddlesome person--is even more defective. Yes,
+I think it quite possible I was hunting on last Wednesday. I can
+sympathize with the young man as to the size of the rabbit. They are
+running very small this year. My decision, therefore, is that you can
+let the young man go.'
+
+"Oh, but that was a great night at the inn. Gretchen was so happy that
+she spilled the beer down the apothecary's back and the landlady could
+talk of nothing but Fiddles's release. But the real fun began an hour
+later, when shouts for the Herr Mahler, interwoven with the music of a
+concertina, made me step to the door. Outside, in the road, stood
+four young men--all pals of Fiddles, all bareheaded, and all carrying
+lanterns. They had come to crown the American with a gold chaplet cut
+from gilt paper, after which I was to be conducted to the public house
+where bumpers of beer were to be drunk until the last pfennig was spent.
+
+"On hearing this, Gretchen, the landlady, the apothecary, the hostler,
+and the stable-boy--not the cobbler, you may be sure--burst forth with
+cries of: 'Hip! Hip!--Hock! Donder und Blitzen!' or whatever they do
+yell when they are mad with joy.
+
+"Then the landlady broke out in a fresh place: 'No public-house for
+you! This is my treat! All of you come inside. Gretchen, get the mugs
+full--all the mugs--Sit down! Sit down! The Herr Painter at the top of
+the table, the Herr Feudels-Shimmer on the right; all the other Herrs
+anywhere in between. Hock the Mahler! Hock the Hunter! Hock everybody
+but the cobbler!' Here a groan went round. 'Hock! Hip and Blather
+skitzen for the good and honorable Mayor, who always loves the people!'
+
+"'And Hock! too, for the honorable and good gendarme!' laughed Fiddles,
+dropping into his chair. 'But for him I would be in the lock-up instead
+of basking in the smiles of two such lovely women as the fascinating
+landlady and the bewitching Gretchen.'
+
+"After that Fiddles and I became inseparable. That I hadn't a mark
+over my expenses to give him in return for his services--and there was
+nothing he would not do for me--made no difference. He wouldn't take any
+wages; all he wanted was to carry my traps, to sit by me while I worked;
+wake me up in the morning, be the last to wish me good night. Soon it
+became a settled fact that, while the landlady fed two mouths--mine and
+Fiddles's--and provided two beds--Fiddles in the garret--my single board
+bill covered all the items. 'That is the Herr Painter and his servant,'
+she would say to inquiring strangers who watched us depart for a day's
+work, Fiddles carrying my easel and traps.
+
+"This went on for weeks--might have gone on all summer but for
+the events which followed a day's outing. We had spent the morning
+sketching, and on our way home had stood opposite a wide-open gate--a
+great baronial affair with a coat of arms in twisted iron, the whole
+flanked by two royal lamps.
+
+"'Step inside, Master,' said Fiddles. 'It is hot, and there is a seat
+under that tree; there we will get cool.'
+
+"'It's against the rules, Fiddles, and I don't know these people.'
+
+"'Then I'll introduce you.'
+
+"He was half-way across the grass by this time and within reach of a
+wooden bench, when an old lady stepped out from behind a tree--a real
+old aristocrat in black silk and white ruffles. She had a book in her
+hand, and had evidently been reading.
+
+"You should have seen the bow Fiddles gave her, and the courtesy she
+returned.
+
+"'Madame the Baroness,' said the rascal, with an irradiating smile as I
+approached them, 'has been good enough to ask us to accompany her to the
+house. Permit me, Madame, to present my friend, a distinguished American
+painter who is visiting our country, and who was so entranced at the
+beauty of your grounds and the regal splendor of your gate and chateau
+that rather than disappoint him--'
+
+"'You are both doubly welcome, gentlemen,' 'This way, please,' replied the
+old lady with a dip of her aristocratic head; and before I knew it we
+were seated in an oak-panelled dining-room with two servants in livery
+tumbling over each other in their efforts to find the particular wine
+best suited to our palates.
+
+"Fiddles sipped his Rudesheimer with the air of a connoisseur, blinking
+at the ceiling now and then after the manner of expert wine tasters, and
+complimenting the old lady meanwhile on the quality of the vintage.
+I confined myself to a glass of sherry and a biscuit, while Fiddles,
+rising from his seat, later on, stood enraptured before this portrait
+and that, commenting on their coloring, ending by drawing an ancient
+book from the library and going into ecstasies over the binding and
+type.
+
+"On our way home to the inn from the chateau there was, so far as I
+could see, no change in Fiddles's manner. Neither was his speech or gait
+at all affected by the bottle of Rudesheimer (and he managed to get away
+with it all). I mention this because it is vitally important to what
+follows. Only once did he seem at all excited, and that was when he
+passed the cobbler's corner. But then he was always excited when he
+passed the cobbler seated at work--so much so sometimes that I have seen
+him shake his fist at him. To-day he merely tightened his jaw, stopped
+for a moment as if determined to step in and have it out with him (the
+cobbler, I afterward found out, was to leave the village for good the
+next day, his trade having fallen off, owing to his being so unpopular),
+and then, as if changing his mind, followed along after me, muttering:
+'Spy--informer--beast--' as I had often heard him do before.
+
+"Judge of my astonishment then, when, an hour later, Gretchen came
+running into my room wringing her hands--I had caught him kissing her
+the night before--and burst out with:
+
+"'He is under the table--the huckster's feet on him--He is there like a
+dog--Oh, it is dreadful! Mine Herr--won't you come?'
+
+"'Who is under the table?'
+
+"'Wilhelm.'
+
+"'Where?'
+
+"'At the public-house.'
+
+"'How do you know?'
+
+"'Fritz, the stable-boy has just seen him.'
+
+"'What's the matter with him?'
+
+"Gretchen hung her head, and the tears streamed down her cheeks,
+
+"'He is--he is--Oh, Meinherr--it is not the beer--nobody ever gets that
+way with our beer--it is something he--'
+
+"' Drunk!'
+
+"'Yes, dead drunk, and under the table like a hog in the mud--Oh, my
+poor Wilhelm! Oh, who has been so wicked to you! Oh! Oh!' and she ran
+from the room.
+
+"I started on the run, Gretchen and the good landlady close behind. If
+the Rudesheimer had upset Fiddles it had worked very slowly; maybe
+it had revived an old conquered thirst, and the cheap cognac at the
+public-house was the result. That he was not a man of humble birth,
+nor one without home refinements, I had long since divined. Had I not
+suspected it before, his manner in presenting me to the old Baroness,
+and his behavior in the dining-hall, especially toward the servants,
+would have opened my eyes. How then could such a man in an hour become
+so besotted a brute?
+
+"And yet every word of Gretchen's story was true. Not only was Fiddles
+drunk, soggy, helplessly drunk, but from all accounts he was in that
+same condition when he had staggered into the place, and, falling over
+a table, had rolled himself against the wall. There he had lain, out of
+the way, except when some dram-drinking driver's heavy cowhide boots had
+made a doormat of his yielding body--not an unusual occurrence, by the
+way, at the roadside taverns frequented by the lower classes.
+
+"We worked over him, calling him by name, propping him up against the
+wall, only to have him sag back; and finally, at the suggestion of one
+of the truckmen--he was in a half-comatose state really from the liquor
+he had absorbed--we carried him out into the stable yard, and I held his
+shapely head, with its beautiful hair a-frowze, while a stream of cold
+water from the pump struck the back of his head and neck.
+
+"The poor fellow stared around wildly as the chill reached his nerves
+and tried to put his arm around me, then he toppled over again and lay
+like a log. Nothing was left but to pick him up bodily and carry him
+home; that I did with Fritz's, the stable-boy's, help, Gretchen carrying
+his cap, and the landlady following behind with his coat, which I had
+stripped off when his head went under the pump. The bystanders didn't
+care--one drunken man more or less made no difference--but both of
+the women were in tears, 'Poor Wilhelm! Somebody had drugged him; some
+wicked men had played a trick, etc., etc. I thought of the Rudesheimer,
+and then dismissed it from my mind. Something stronger than Rhine wine
+had wrought this change.
+
+"We laid him flat out on a cot in a room on the second floor, and
+dragged it near the open window so he could get the air from the garden,
+and left him, I taking the precaution to lock the door to prevent his
+staggering downstairs and breaking his neck.
+
+"The next morning, before I was dressed, in fact, a row downstairs
+brought me into the hall outside my door, where I stood listening over
+the banister. Then came the tramp of men, and three gendarmes mounted
+the steps and halted at Fiddles's door.
+
+"Bang! bang! went the hilt of a short-sword on the panel. 'Open, in the
+name of the law.'
+
+"'What for?' I demanded. Getting drunk was not a crime in Rosengarten,
+especially when the offender had been tucked away in bed.
+
+"'For smashing the face of a citizen--a worthy cobbler--the night
+before, at the hour of eight,--just as he was closing his shutters. The
+cobbler lay insensible until he had been found by the patrol. He had,
+however, recognized Fuedels-Shimmer as the--'
+
+"'But, gentleman, Herr Fiddles was dead drunk at eight o'clock; he
+hasn't stirred out of the room since. Here is the key,' and I unlocked
+the door and we all stepped in, Gretchen and the landlady close behind.
+They had told the officers the same story downstairs, but they would not
+believe it.
+
+"At the intrusion, Fiddles rose to a sitting posture and stared
+wonderingly. He was sober enough now, but his heavy sleep still showed
+about his eyes.
+
+"The production of the key, my positive statement, backed by the women,
+and Fiddles's wondering gaze, brought the gendarmes to a halt for a
+moment, but his previous arrest was against him, and so the boy was
+finally ordered to put on his clothes and accompany them to the lock-up.
+
+"I got into the rest of my duds, and began waving the American flag and
+ordering out gunboats. I insisted that the cobbler had lied before in
+accusing Fiddles of shooting the rabbit, as was well known, and he would
+lie again. Fiddles was my friend, my servant--a youth of incorruptible
+character. It is true he had been intoxicated the night before, and that
+I had in consequence put him to bed, but that was entirely due to the
+effects of some very rare wine which he had drunk at a luncheon given
+in his honor and mine by our very dear friend the Baroness Morghenslitz,
+who had entertained us at her princely home. This, with the heat of the
+day, had been, etc., etc.
+
+"The mention of the distinguished woman's name caused another halt.
+Further consultation ensued, resulting in the decision that we all
+adjourn to the office of the Mayor. If, after hearing our alibi--one
+beyond dispute, and submitting our evidence (Exhibit A, the key, which
+they must admit exactly fitted the lock of Fiddles's bedroom door),
+his Honor could still be made to believe the perjured testimony of the
+cobbler--Fiddles's enemy, as had been abundantly proved in the previous
+rabbit case, when the same mendacious half-soler and heeler had informed
+on my friend--well and good; but if not, then, the resources of my
+Government would be set in motion for the young man's release.
+
+"The Mayor's first words were: 'Ah, you have come again, is it, Meinherr
+Marny; and it is the same young man, too, Herr Fuddles. Well, well, it
+is much trouble that you have.' (I'd give it to you in German, old man,
+but you wouldn't understand it--this to me in a sort of an aside.)
+
+"Fiddles never moved a muscle of his face. You would have thought that
+he was the least interested man in the room. Only once did his features
+relax, and that was when the cobbler arrived with his head swathed in
+bandages. Then a grim smile flickered about the corners of his mouth, as
+if fate had at last overtaken his enemy.
+
+"Of course, the Mayor dismissed the case. Gretchen's tearful, pleading
+face, the landlady's positive statement of helping put the dear young
+gentleman to bed; the key and the use I had made of it; the reluctant
+testimony of the officers, who had tried the knob and could not get in
+until I had turned the lock, together with the well-known animosity of
+the cobbler (and all because Fiddles had ridiculed his workmanship on
+a pair of shoes the boy had left with him to be half-soled), turned the
+tide in the lad's favor and sent us all back to the inn rejoicing.
+
+"Some weeks later Fiddles came into my room, locked the door, pulled
+down the shades, looked under the bed, in the closet and behind the
+curtains, and sat down in front of me. (I had to return to Munich the
+next day, and this would be our last night together.)
+
+"You have been very good to me, Master,' he said with a choke in his
+voice. 'I love people who are good to me; I hate those who are not. I
+have been that way all my life--it would have been better for me if
+I hadn't.' Then he leaned forward and took my hand. 'I want you to do
+something more for me; I want you to promise me you'll take me home to
+America with you when you go. I'm tired dodging these people. I want to
+get somewhere where I can shoot and hunt and fish, and nobody can stop
+me. I snared that rabbit; been snaring them all summer; going to keep
+on snaring them after you're gone. I love to hunt them--love the fun
+of it--born that way. And I've got something else to tell you'--here a
+triumphant smile flashed over his face--'I smashed that cobbler!'
+
+"'You, Fiddles!' I laughed. 'Why, you were dead drunk, and I put you
+under the pump and--'
+
+"'Yes, I know you thought so--I intended you should. I heard every word
+that you said, and what little Gretchen said--dear little Gretchen, I
+had studied it all out, and to play drunk seemed the best way to get at
+the brute, and it was; they'd have proved it on me if I hadn't fooled
+them that way--' and again his eyes snapped and his face flushed as the
+humor of the situation rose in his mind. 'You'll forgive me, won't you?
+Don't tell Gretchen.' The light in his eyes was gone now. I'd rather
+she'd think me drunk than vulgar, and it was vulgar, and maybe cowardly,
+to hit him, but I couldn't help that either, and I'm not sorry I did
+it.'
+
+"'But I locked you in,' I persisted. Was this some invention of his
+fertile imagination, or was it true?
+
+"'Yes, you locked the door,' he answered, as he broke into a subdued
+laugh. 'I dropped from the window sill when it got dark--it wasn't high,
+about fifteen feet, and the waterspout helped--ran down the back way,
+gave him a crack as he opened the door, and was back in bed by the help
+of the same spout before he had come to. He was leaving the next day
+and it was my only chance. I wasn't out of the room five minutes--maybe
+less. You'll forgive me that too, won't you?'"
+
+Marny stopped and looked into the smouldering coals. For a brief instant
+he did not speak. Then he rose from his chair, crossed the room, took
+the miniature from the wall where he had hung it and looked at it
+steadily.
+
+"What a delightful devil you were, Fiddles. And you were so human."
+
+"Is he living yet?" I asked.
+
+"No, he died in Gretchen's arms. I kept my promise, and two months
+later went back to the village to bring him to America with me, but a
+forester's bullet had ended him. It was on the Baroness's grounds, too.
+He wouldn't halt and the guard fired. Think of killing such an adorable
+savage--and all because the blood of the primeval man boiled in his
+veins. Oh, it was damnable!"
+
+"And you know nothing more about him? Where he came from?" The story had
+strangely moved me. "Were there no letters or notebooks? Nothing to show
+who he really was?"
+
+"Only an empty envelope postmarked 'Berlin.' This had reached him the
+day before, and was sealed with a coat of arms in violet wax."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Fiddles, by F. Hopkinson Smith
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diff --git a/23698.zip b/23698.zip
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #23698 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23698)
diff --git a/old/23698-h.htm.2021-01-25 b/old/23698-h.htm.2021-01-25
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+
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+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      Fiddles, by F. Hopkinson Smith
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fiddles, by F. Hopkinson Smith
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Fiddles
+       1909
+
+Author: F. Hopkinson Smith
+
+Release Date: December 3, 2007 [EBook #23698]
+Last Updated: December 20, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIDDLES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <div style="height: 8em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      FIDDLES
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      By F. Hopkinson Smith <br /><br /> 1909
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is Marny&rsquo;s story, not mine. He had a hammer in his hand at the time
+      and a tack between his teeth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Going to hang Fiddles right under the old fellow&rsquo;s head,&rdquo; he burst out.
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s where he belongs. I&rsquo;d have given a ten-acre if he could have drawn
+      a bead on that elk himself. Fiddles behind a .44 Winchester and that old
+      buck browsing to windward&rdquo;&mdash;and he nodded at the elk&rsquo;s head&mdash;&ldquo;would
+      have made the village Mayor sit up and think. What a picturesque liar you
+      are, Fiddles&rdquo;&mdash;here the point of the tack was pressed into the
+      plaster with Marny&rsquo;s fat thumb&mdash;&ldquo;and what a good-for-nothing, breezy,
+      lovable vagabond&rdquo;&mdash;(Bang! Bang! Hammer at play now)&mdash;&ldquo;you could
+      be when you tried. There!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Marny stepped back and took in the stuffed head and wide-branched antlers
+      of the magnificent elk (five feet six from skull to tips) and the small,
+      partly faded miniature of a young man in a student cap and high-collared
+      coat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I waited and let him run on. It is never wise to interrupt Marny. He will
+      lose the thread of his talk if you do, and though he starts off
+      immediately on another lead, and one, perhaps equally graphic, he has left
+      you suspended in mid-air so far as the tale you were getting interested in
+      is concerned. Who Fiddles was and why his Honor the Mayor should sit up
+      and think; why, too, the miniature of the young man&mdash;and he <i>was</i>
+      young and remarkably good-looking, as I well knew, having seen the picture
+      many times before on his mantel&mdash;should now be suspended below the
+      elk&rsquo;s head, would come out in time if I loosened my ear-flaps and buttoned
+      up my tongue, but not if I reversed the operation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, you young fraud,&rdquo; he went on&mdash;the position of both head and
+      miniature pleased him now&mdash;&ldquo;do you remember the time I hauled you out
+      from under the table when the hucksters were making a door-mat of your
+      back; and the time I washed you off at the pump, and what you said to the
+      gendarme, and&mdash;No, you never remembered anything. You&rsquo;d rather sprawl
+      out on the grass, or make eyes at Gretchen or the landlady&mdash;fifty, if
+      she was a day&mdash;maybe fifty-five, and yet she fell in love&rdquo; (this last
+      was addressed directly to me; it had been reminiscent before that, fired
+      at the ceiling, at the hangings in his sumptuous studio, or the fire
+      crackling oil the hearth), &ldquo;fell in love with that tramp&mdash;a boy of
+      twenty-two, mind you&mdash;Ah! but what a rounder he was! Such a trim,
+      well-knit figure; so light and nimble on his feet; such a pair of eyes in
+      his head, leaking tears one minute and flashing hate the next. And his
+      mouth! I tried, but I couldn&rsquo;t paint it&mdash;nobody could&mdash;so I did
+      his profile; one of those curving, seductive mouths you sometimes see on a
+      man, that quivers when he smiles, the teeth gleaming between the moist
+      lips.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had lassoed a chair with my foot by this time, had dragged it nearer the
+      fire, and had settled myself in another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Funny name, though for a German,&rdquo; I remarked carelessly&mdash;quite as if
+      the fellow&rsquo;s patronymic had already formed part of the discussion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Had to call him something for short,&rdquo; Marny retorted. &ldquo;Feudels-Shimmer
+      was what they called him in Rosengarten&mdash;Wilhelm Feudels-Shimmer. I
+      tried all of it at first, then I bit off the Shimmer, and then the
+      Wilhelm, and ran him along on Feudels for a while, then it got down to
+      Fuddles, and at last to Fiddles, and there it stuck. Just fitted him, too.
+      All he wanted was a bow, and I furnished that&mdash;enough of the devil&rsquo;s
+      resin to set him going&mdash;and out would roll jigs, lullabys,
+      fandangoes, serenades&mdash;anything you wanted: anything to which his
+      mood tempted him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Marny had settled into his chair now, and had stretched his fat legs
+      toward the blaze, his middle distance completely filling the space between
+      the arms. He had pushed himself over many a ledge with this same pair of
+      legs and on this same rotundity, his hand on his Winchester, before his
+      first ball crashed through the shoulder of the big elk whose glass eyes
+      were now looking down upon Fiddles and ourselves&mdash;and he would do it
+      again on another big-horn when the season opened. You wouldn&rsquo;t have
+      thought so had you dropped in upon us and scanned his waist measure, but
+      then, of course, you don&rsquo;t know Marny.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again Marny&rsquo;s eyes rested for a moment on the miniature; then he went on:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We were about broke when I painted it,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;There was a fair of
+      some sort in the village, and I got an old frame for half a mark in a
+      pawnshop, borrowed a coat from Fritz, the stableman, squeezed Fiddles into
+      it, stuck a student&rsquo;s cap on his head, made it look a hundred years old&mdash;the
+      frame was all of that&mdash;and tried to sell it as a portrait of a
+      &lsquo;Gentleman of the Last Century,&rsquo; but it wouldn&rsquo;t work. Fiddles&rsquo;s laugh
+      gave it away. &lsquo;Looks like you,&rsquo; the old man said. &lsquo;Yes, it&rsquo;s my brother,&rsquo; 
+      he blurted out, slapping the dealer on the back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where did you pick Fiddles up?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nowhere,&rdquo; answered Marny; &ldquo;he picked me up. That is, the gendarme did who
+      had him by the coat collar.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;This fellow insists you know him,&rsquo; said the officer of the law. &lsquo;He says
+      that he is honest and that this rabbit&rsquo;&mdash;here he pointed to a pair of
+      long ears sticking out of a game bag&mdash;&lsquo;is one he shot with the Mayor
+      this morning. Is this true?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now if there is one thing, old man,&rdquo; continued Marny, &ldquo;that gets me hot
+      around the collar, it is to see a brother sportsman arrested for killing
+      anything that can fly, run, or swim. So I rose from my sketching stool and
+      looked him over: his eyes&mdash;not a bit of harm in &lsquo;em; his loose
+      necktie thrown over one shoulder; trim waist, and so on down to the
+      leather leggings buttoned to his knees. If he was a poacher and subject to
+      the law, he certainly was the most picturesque specimen I had met in many
+      a day. I had, of course, never laid eyes on him before, having been but a
+      few days in the village, but that made the situation all the more
+      interesting. To rescue a friend would be commonplace, to rescue a stranger
+      smacked of adventure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I uncovered my head and bowed to the ground. &lsquo;His Honor shoots almost
+      every day, your Excellency,&rsquo; I said to the gendarme. &lsquo;I have seen him
+      frequently with his friends&mdash;this young man is no doubt one of them&mdash;Let&mdash;me&mdash;think&mdash;was
+      it this morning, or yesterday, I met the Mayor? It is at best a very small
+      rabbit&rsquo;&mdash;here I fingered the head and ears&mdash;&lsquo;and would probably
+      have died of hunger anyway. However, if any claim should be made by the
+      farmer I will pay the damages&rsquo;&mdash;this with a lordly air, and I with
+      only a week&rsquo;s board in my pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The gendarme released his hold and stood looking at the young fellow. The
+      day was hot and the village lock-up two miles away. That the rabbit was
+      small and the Mayor an inveterate sportsman were also undeniable facts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Next time,&rsquo; he said sententiously, with a scowl, &lsquo;do you let his Honor
+      carry the game home in his own bag,&rsquo; and he walked away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you just ought to have seen Fiddles skip around when a turn in the
+      road shut out the cocked hat and cross-belts, and heard him pour out his
+      thanks. &lsquo;His name was Wilhelm, he cried out; it had only been by chance
+      that he had got separated from his friends. Where did I live? Would I let
+      him give me the rabbit for a stew for my dinner? Was I the painter who had
+      come to the inn? If so he had heard of me. Could he and his friends call
+      upon me that night? He would never forget my kindness. What was the use of
+      being a gentleman if you couldn&rsquo;t help another gentleman out of a scrape?
+      As for Herr Rabbit&mdash;the poor little Herr Rabbit-here he stroked his
+      fur&mdash;what more honorable end than gracing the table of the Honorable
+      Painter? Ah, these dogs of the law&mdash;when would they learn not to
+      meddle with things that did not concern them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And did Fiddles come to your inn, Marny?&rdquo; I asked, merely as a prod to
+      keep him going.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, a week later, and with the same gendarme. The cobbler in the
+      village, who sat all day long pegging at his shoes, and who, it seemed,
+      was watch-goose for the whole village and knew the movements of every
+      inhabitant, man, woman, and child, and who for some reason hated Fiddles,
+      on being interviewed by the gendarme, had stated positively that the Mayor
+      had <i>not</i> passed his corner with his gun and four dogs on the day of
+      Fiddles&rsquo;s arrest. This being the case, the gendarme had rearrested the
+      culprit, and would have taken him at once to the lock-up had not Fiddles
+      threatened the officer with false arrest. Would the Herr Painter accompany
+      the officer and himself to the house of the Mayor and settle the matter as
+      to whether his Honor was or was not out hunting on that particular
+      morning?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All this time Fiddles was looking about the dining-room of the inn,
+      taking in the supper-table, the rows of mugs, especially the landlady, who
+      was frightened half out of her wits by Cocked Hat&rsquo;s presence, and more
+      especially still little Gretchen&mdash;such a plump, rosy-cheeked,
+      blue-eyed little Dutch girl&mdash;with two Marguerite pig-tails down her
+      back. (Gretchen served the beer, and was the life of the place. &lsquo;Poor
+      young man!&rsquo; she said to the landlady, who had by this time come to the
+      same conclusion&mdash;&lsquo;and he is so good-looking and with such lovely
+      eyes.&rsquo;)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When we got to the Mayor&rsquo;s the old fellow was asleep in a big armchair,
+      his pipe out, his legs far apart&mdash;a keg-shaped kind of a man, with a
+      head flattened on his shoulders like a stove-lid, who said &lsquo;Ach Gott&rsquo; 
+      every five minutes, and spluttered when he talked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I went in first, leaving the two on the porch until I should send for
+      them. I didn&rsquo;t know how things were going to turn out and had become a
+      little anxious. I had run up from Munich for a few weeks&rsquo; outdoor work and
+      wanted to stay out, not behind iron bars for abetting crime.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Your Supreme Highness,&rsquo; I began, &lsquo;I have heard of your great prowess as
+      a sportsman, and so I wanted to pay my respects. I, too, am a shootist&mdash;an
+      American shootist.&rsquo; Here I launched out on our big game (I had been six
+      months in the Rockies before I came abroad, and knew what I was talking
+      about). He was wide awake by this time and was listening. Dropping into
+      the chair which he had drawn up for me, I told him of our elk&mdash;&lsquo;As
+      big as horses, your Honor&rsquo;; of our mountain lions&mdash;savage beasts that
+      could climb trees and fall upon the defenseless; of our catamounts, deer,
+      wolves, bears, foxes&mdash;all these we killed without molestation from
+      anybody; I told him how all American sportsmen were like the Nimrods of
+      old. How galling, then, for a true shootist to be misunderstood, decried,
+      denounced, and arrested for so insignificant a beastie as a rabbit! This
+      indignity my very dear friend, Herr Wilhelm Fuedels-Shimmer, had suffered&mdash;a
+      most estimable young man&mdash;careless, perhaps, in his interpretation of
+      the law, but who would not be&mdash;that is, what sportsman would not be?
+      I had in Wilhelm&rsquo;s defense not only backed up his story, but I had gone so
+      far as to hazard the opinion to the officer of that law, that it was not
+      on some uncertain Tuesday or Friday or Saturday, but on that very
+      Wednesday, that his Supreme Highness had been wont to follow with his four
+      accomplished dogs the tracks of the nimble cotton-tail. Would his
+      Highness, therefore, be good enough to concentrate his giant brain on his
+      past life and fish from out his memory the exact day on which he last
+      hunted? While that was going on I would excuse myself long enough to bring
+      in the alleged criminal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fiddles stepped in with the easy grace of a courtier accustomed to
+      meeting a Mayor every day of his life, and, after a confirmatory wink from
+      me, boldly asserted that he had followed behind his Honor&mdash;had really
+      assisted in driving the game his way. His Honor might not remember his
+      face, but he surely must remember that his Honorable Honor had
+      extraordinarily good luck that day. The rabbit in controversy&mdash;a very
+      small, quite a baby rabbit&mdash;was really one his Honorable and Most
+      Supreme Highness had himself wounded, and which he, Fiddles, had finished.
+      He was bringing it to his Honor when the estimable gendarme had stopped
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;And what day was that?&rsquo; interrupted the Mayor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;On last Wednesday.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;The cobbler said it was Tuesday,&rsquo; insisted Cocked Hat. &lsquo;On this point
+      hangs the case. Now on which day did your Honor take the field with your
+      dogs?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was a dead silence, during which the Mayor&rsquo;s eyes rested on the
+      culprit. Fiddles returned the look, head up, a smile on his lips that
+      would have fooled the devil himself. Then his Honor turned to me and said:
+      &lsquo;My memory is not always very good, but this time the cobbler&rsquo;s&mdash;who
+      is a meddlesome person&mdash;is even more defective. Yes, I think it quite
+      possible I was hunting on last Wednesday. I can sympathize with the young
+      man as to the size of the rabbit. They are running very small this year.
+      My decision, therefore, is that you can let the young man go.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, but that was a great night at the inn. Gretchen was so happy that she
+      spilled the beer down the apothecary&rsquo;s back and the landlady could talk of
+      nothing but Fiddles&rsquo;s release. But the real fun began an hour later, when
+      shouts for the Herr Mahler, interwoven with the music of a concertina,
+      made me step to the door. Outside, in the road, stood four young men&mdash;all
+      pals of Fiddles, all bareheaded, and all carrying lanterns. They had come
+      to crown the American with a gold chaplet cut from gilt paper, after which
+      I was to be conducted to the public house where bumpers of beer were to be
+      drunk until the last pfennig was spent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On hearing this, Gretchen, the landlady, the apothecary, the hostler, and
+      the stable-boy&mdash;not the cobbler, you may be sure&mdash;burst forth
+      with cries of: &lsquo;Hip! Hip!&mdash;Hock! Donder und Blitzen!&rsquo; or whatever
+      they do yell when they are mad with joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then the landlady broke out in a fresh place: &lsquo;No public-house for you!
+      This is my treat! All of you come inside. Gretchen, get the mugs full&mdash;all
+      the mugs&mdash;Sit down! Sit down! The Herr Painter at the top of the
+      table, the Herr Feudels-Shimmer on the right; all the other Herrs anywhere
+      in between. Hock the Mahler! Hock the Hunter! Hock everybody but the
+      cobbler!&rsquo; Here a groan went round. &lsquo;Hock! Hip and Blather skitzen for the
+      good and honorable Mayor, who always loves the people!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;And Hock! too, for the honorable and good gendarme!&rsquo; laughed Fiddles,
+      dropping into his chair. &lsquo;But for him I would be in the lock-up instead of
+      basking in the smiles of two such lovely women as the fascinating landlady
+      and the bewitching Gretchen.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After that Fiddles and I became inseparable. That I hadn&rsquo;t a mark over my
+      expenses to give him in return for his services&mdash;and there was
+      nothing he would not do for me&mdash;made no difference. He wouldn&rsquo;t take
+      any wages; all he wanted was to carry my traps, to sit by me while I
+      worked; wake me up in the morning, be the last to wish me good night. Soon
+      it became a settled fact that, while the landlady fed two mouths&mdash;mine
+      and Fiddles&rsquo;s&mdash;and provided two beds&mdash;Fiddles in the garret&mdash;my
+      single board bill covered all the items. &lsquo;That is the Herr Painter and his
+      servant,&rsquo; she would say to inquiring strangers who watched us depart for a
+      day&rsquo;s work, Fiddles carrying my easel and traps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This went on for weeks&mdash;might have gone on all summer but for the
+      events which followed a day&rsquo;s outing. We had spent the morning sketching,
+      and on our way home had stood opposite a wide-open gate&mdash;a great
+      baronial affair with a coat of arms in twisted iron, the whole flanked by
+      two royal lamps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Step inside, Master,&rsquo; said Fiddles. &lsquo;It is hot, and there is a seat
+      under that tree; there we will get cool.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;It&rsquo;s against the rules, Fiddles, and I don&rsquo;t know these people.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Then I&rsquo;ll introduce you.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was half-way across the grass by this time and within reach of a
+      wooden bench, when an old lady stepped out from behind a tree&mdash;a real
+      old aristocrat in black silk and white ruffles. She had a book in her
+      hand, and had evidently been reading.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You should have seen the bow Fiddles gave her, and the courtesy she
+      returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Madame the Baroness,&rsquo; said the rascal, with an irradiating smile as I
+      approached them, &lsquo;has been good enough to ask us to accompany her to the
+      house. Permit me, Madame, to present my friend, a distinguished American
+      painter who is visiting our country, and who was so entranced at the
+      beauty of your grounds and the regal splendor of your gate and château
+      that rather than disappoint him&mdash;&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;You are both doubly welcome, gentlemen,&rsquo; &lsquo;This way, please,&rsquo; replied the
+      old lady with a dip of her aristocratic head; and before I knew it we were
+      seated in an oak-panelled dining-room with two servants in livery tumbling
+      over each other in their efforts to find the particular wine best suited
+      to our palates.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fiddles sipped his Rudesheimer with the air of a connoisseur, blinking at
+      the ceiling now and then after the manner of expert wine tasters, and
+      complimenting the old lady meanwhile on the quality of the vintage. I
+      confined myself to a glass of sherry and a biscuit, while Fiddles, rising
+      from his seat, later on, stood enraptured before this portrait and that,
+      commenting on their coloring, ending by drawing an ancient book from the
+      library and going into ecstasies over the binding and type.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On our way home to the inn from the chateau there was, so far as I could
+      see, no change in Fiddles&rsquo;s manner. Neither was his speech or gait at all
+      affected by the bottle of Rudesheimer (and he managed to get away with it
+      all). I mention this because it is vitally important to what follows. Only
+      once did he seem at all excited, and that was when he passed the cobbler&rsquo;s
+      corner. But then he was always excited when he passed the cobbler seated
+      at work&mdash;so much so sometimes that I have seen him shake his fist at
+      him. To-day he merely tightened his jaw, stopped for a moment as if
+      determined to step in and have it out with him (the cobbler, I afterward
+      found out, was to leave the village for good the next day, his trade
+      having fallen off, owing to his being so unpopular), and then, as if
+      changing his mind, followed along after me, muttering: &lsquo;Spy&mdash;informer&mdash;beast&mdash;&rsquo; 
+      as I had often heard him do before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Judge of my astonishment then, when, an hour later, Gretchen came running
+      into my room wringing her hands&mdash;I had caught him kissing her the
+      night before&mdash;and burst out with:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;He is under the table&mdash;the huckster&rsquo;s feet on him&mdash;He is there
+      like a dog&mdash;Oh, it is dreadful! Mine Herr&mdash;won&rsquo;t you come?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Who is under the table?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Wilhelm.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Where?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;At the public-house.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;How do you know?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Fritz, the stable-boy has just seen him.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;What&rsquo;s the matter with him?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gretchen hung her head, and the tears streamed down her cheeks,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;He is&mdash;he is&mdash;Oh, Meinherr&mdash;it is not the beer&mdash;nobody
+      ever gets that way with our beer&mdash;it is something he&mdash;&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&rsquo; Drunk!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Yes, dead drunk, and under the table like a hog in the mud&mdash;Oh, my
+      poor Wilhelm! Oh, who has been so wicked to you! Oh! Oh!&rsquo; and she ran from
+      the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I started on the run, Gretchen and the good landlady close behind. If the
+      Rudesheimer had upset Fiddles it had worked very slowly; maybe it had
+      revived an old conquered thirst, and the cheap cognac at the public-house
+      was the result. That he was not a man of humble birth, nor one without
+      home refinements, I had long since divined. Had I not suspected it before,
+      his manner in presenting me to the old Baroness, and his behavior in the
+      dining-hall, especially toward the servants, would have opened my eyes.
+      How then could such a man in an hour become so besotted a brute?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And yet every word of Gretchen&rsquo;s story was true. Not only was Fiddles
+      drunk, soggy, helplessly drunk, but from all accounts he was in that same
+      condition when he had staggered into the place, and, falling over a table,
+      had rolled himself against the wall. There he had lain, out of the way,
+      except when some dram-drinking driver&rsquo;s heavy cowhide boots had made a
+      doormat of his yielding body&mdash;not an unusual occurrence, by the way,
+      at the roadside taverns frequented by the lower classes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We worked over him, calling him by name, propping him up against the
+      wall, only to have him sag back; and finally, at the suggestion of one of
+      the truckmen&mdash;he was in a half-comatose state really from the liquor
+      he had absorbed&mdash;we carried him out into the stable yard, and I held
+      his shapely head, with its beautiful hair a-frowze, while a stream of cold
+      water from the pump struck the back of his head and neck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The poor fellow stared around wildly as the chill reached his nerves and
+      tried to put his arm around me, then he toppled over again and lay like a
+      log. Nothing was left but to pick him up bodily and carry him home; that I
+      did with Fritz&rsquo;s, the stable-boy&rsquo;s, help, Gretchen carrying his cap, and
+      the landlady following behind with his coat, which I had stripped off when
+      his head went under the pump. The bystanders didn&rsquo;t care&mdash;one drunken
+      man more or less made no difference&mdash;but both of the women were in
+      tears, &lsquo;Poor Wilhelm! Somebody had drugged him; some wicked men had played
+      a trick, etc., etc. I thought of the Rudesheimer, and then dismissed it
+      from my mind. Something stronger than Rhine wine had wrought this change.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We laid him flat out on a cot in a room on the second floor, and dragged
+      it near the open window so he could get the air from the garden, and left
+      him, I taking the precaution to lock the door to prevent his staggering
+      downstairs and breaking his neck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The next morning, before I was dressed, in fact, a row downstairs brought
+      me into the hall outside my door, where I stood listening over the
+      banister. Then came the tramp of men, and three gendarmes mounted the
+      steps and halted at Fiddles&rsquo;s door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bang! bang! went the hilt of a short-sword on the panel. &lsquo;Open, in the
+      name of the law.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;What for?&rsquo; I demanded. Getting drunk was not a crime in Rosengarten,
+      especially when the offender had been tucked away in bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;For smashing the face of a citizen&mdash;a worthy cobbler&mdash;the
+      night before, at the hour of eight,&mdash;just as he was closing his
+      shutters. The cobbler lay insensible until he had been found by the
+      patrol. He had, however, recognized Fuedels-Shimmer as the&mdash;&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;But, gentleman, Herr Fiddles was dead drunk at eight o&rsquo;clock; he hasn&rsquo;t
+      stirred out of the room since. Here is the key,&rsquo; and I unlocked the door
+      and we all stepped in, Gretchen and the landlady close behind. They had
+      told the officers the same story downstairs, but they would not believe
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At the intrusion, Fiddles rose to a sitting posture and stared
+      wonderingly. He was sober enough now, but his heavy sleep still showed
+      about his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The production of the key, my positive statement, backed by the women,
+      and Fiddles&rsquo;s wondering gaze, brought the gendarmes to a halt for a
+      moment, but his previous arrest was against him, and so the boy was
+      finally ordered to put on his clothes and accompany them to the lock-up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I got into the rest of my duds, and began waving the American flag and
+      ordering out gunboats. I insisted that the cobbler had lied before in
+      accusing Fiddles of shooting the rabbit, as was well known, and he would
+      lie again. Fiddles was my friend, my servant&mdash;a youth of
+      incorruptible character. It is true he had been intoxicated the night
+      before, and that I had in consequence put him to bed, but that was
+      entirely due to the effects of some very rare wine which he had drunk at a
+      luncheon given in his honor and mine by our very dear friend the Baroness
+      Morghenslitz, who had entertained us at her princely home. This, with the
+      heat of the day, had been, etc., etc.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The mention of the distinguished woman&rsquo;s name caused another halt.
+      Further consultation ensued, resulting in the decision that we all adjourn
+      to the office of the Mayor. If, after hearing our alibi&mdash;one beyond
+      dispute, and submitting our evidence (Exhibit A, the key, which they must
+      admit exactly fitted the lock of Fiddles&rsquo;s bedroom door), his Honor could
+      still be made to believe the perjured testimony of the cobbler&mdash;Fiddles&rsquo;s
+      enemy, as had been abundantly proved in the previous rabbit case, when the
+      same mendacious half-soler and heeler had informed on my friend&mdash;well
+      and good; but if not, then, the resources of my Government would be set in
+      motion for the young man&rsquo;s release.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Mayor&rsquo;s first words were: &lsquo;Ah, you have come again, is it, Meinherr
+      Marny; and it is the same young man, too, Herr Fuddles. Well, well, it is
+      much trouble that you have.&rsquo; (I&rsquo;d give it to you in German, old man, but
+      you wouldn&rsquo;t understand it&mdash;this to me in a sort of an aside.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fiddles never moved a muscle of his face. You would have thought that he
+      was the least interested man in the room. Only once did his features
+      relax, and that was when the cobbler arrived with his head swathed in
+      bandages. Then a grim smile flickered about the corners of his mouth, as
+      if fate had at last overtaken his enemy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course, the Mayor dismissed the case. Gretchen&rsquo;s tearful, pleading
+      face, the landlady&rsquo;s positive statement of helping put the dear young
+      gentleman to bed; the key and the use I had made of it; the reluctant
+      testimony of the officers, who had tried the knob and could not get in
+      until I had turned the lock, together with the well-known animosity of the
+      cobbler (and all because Fiddles had ridiculed his workmanship on a pair
+      of shoes the boy had left with him to be half-soled), turned the tide in
+      the lad&rsquo;s favor and sent us all back to the inn rejoicing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some weeks later Fiddles came into my room, locked the door, pulled down
+      the shades, looked under the bed, in the closet and behind the curtains,
+      and sat down in front of me. (I had to return to Munich the next day, and
+      this would be our last night together.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have been very good to me, Master,&rsquo; he said with a choke in his
+      voice. &lsquo;I love people who are good to me; I hate those who are not. I have
+      been that way all my life&mdash;it would have been better for me if I
+      hadn&rsquo;t.&rsquo; Then he leaned forward and took my hand. &lsquo;I want you to do
+      something more for me; I want you to promise me you&rsquo;ll take me home to
+      America with you when you go. I&rsquo;m tired dodging these people. I want to
+      get somewhere where I can shoot and hunt and fish, and nobody can stop me.
+      I snared that rabbit; been snaring them all summer; going to keep on
+      snaring them after you&rsquo;re gone. I love to hunt them&mdash;love the fun of
+      it&mdash;born that way. And I&rsquo;ve got something else to tell you&rsquo;&mdash;here
+      a triumphant smile flashed over his face&mdash;&lsquo;I smashed that cobbler!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;You, Fiddles!&rsquo; I laughed. &lsquo;Why, you were dead drunk, and I put you under
+      the pump and&mdash;&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Yes, I know you thought so&mdash;I intended you should. I heard every
+      word that you said, and what little Gretchen said&mdash;dear little
+      Gretchen, I had studied it all out, and to play drunk seemed the best way
+      to get at the brute, and it was; they&rsquo;d have proved it on me if I hadn&rsquo;t
+      fooled them that way&mdash;&rsquo; and again his eyes snapped and his face
+      flushed as the humor of the situation rose in his mind. &lsquo;You&rsquo;ll forgive
+      me, won&rsquo;t you? Don&rsquo;t tell Gretchen.&rsquo; The light in his eyes was gone now.
+      I&rsquo;d rather she&rsquo;d think me drunk than vulgar, and it was vulgar, and maybe
+      cowardly, to hit him, but I couldn&rsquo;t help that either, and I&rsquo;m not sorry I
+      did it.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;But I locked you in,&rsquo; I persisted. Was this some invention of his
+      fertile imagination, or was it true?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Yes, you locked the door,&rsquo; he answered, as he broke into a subdued
+      laugh. &lsquo;I dropped from the window sill when it got dark&mdash;it wasn&rsquo;t
+      high, about fifteen feet, and the waterspout helped&mdash;ran down the
+      back way, gave him a crack as he opened the door, and was back in bed by
+      the help of the same spout before he had come to. He was leaving the next
+      day and it was my only chance. I wasn&rsquo;t out of the room five minutes&mdash;maybe
+      less. You&rsquo;ll forgive me that too, won&rsquo;t you?&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Marny stopped and looked into the smouldering coals. For a brief instant
+      he did not speak. Then he rose from his chair, crossed the room, took the
+      miniature from the wall where he had hung it and looked at it steadily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a delightful devil you were, Fiddles. And you were so human.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he living yet?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, he died in Gretchen&rsquo;s arms. I kept my promise, and two months later
+      went back to the village to bring him to America with me, but a forester&rsquo;s
+      bullet had ended him. It was on the Baroness&rsquo;s grounds, too. He wouldn&rsquo;t
+      halt and the guard fired. Think of killing such an adorable savage&mdash;and
+      all because the blood of the primeval man boiled in his veins. Oh, it was
+      damnable!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you know nothing more about him? Where he came from?&rdquo; The story had
+      strangely moved me. &ldquo;Were there no letters or notebooks? Nothing to show
+      who he really was?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only an empty envelope postmarked &lsquo;Berlin.&rsquo; This had reached him the day
+      before, and was sealed with a coat of arms in violet wax.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <div style="height: 6em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
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