urer who had first stolen it and
palmed it off upon Fischelowitz had laid a curse upon it, whereby it was
destined to breed dissension and strife wherever it remained and to the
direct injury of whomsoever chanced to possess it for the time being. It
had been the cause of serious disaster to the porter in the first
instance, it had next represented to Fischelowitz a dead loss in money of
fifty marks, it had become a thorn in the side to Akulina, it had led to
one of the most violent quarrels she had ever engaged in with her husband,
its limp and broken form had cost much broken crockery and some broken
furniture to the host of the "Green Wreath Inn," had been the cause of
several ponderous blows dealt and received by Dumnoff, had produced the
violent fall, upon a hard board floor, of a porter and two policemen and
had ultimately brought the Count to prison for the night. Its value had
become very great, for it had been paid for twice over, once by the man
from whom it had been stolen, by the forfeiture of his caution money, and
once by Fischelowitz in the sum of fifty marks lent to an adventurer;
furthermore, the Count had solemnly pledged his word as a gentleman to pay
for it a third time on the morrow, he having in his worldly possession the
sum of one silver mark and two German pennies at the time of entering into
the engagement. The actual sum of money paid and promised to be paid on
the body of the now ruined Gigerl, now amounted, with interest, to more
than four times its original value, thus constituting one of those
interesting problems in real and comparative value so interesting to the
ingenuous political economist, who believes that all value can be traced
to supply and demand. Now, although the Gigerl was but a single doll, the
supply of him, so to speak, had been surprisingly abundant, and the
demand, if represented by the desire of any one person concerned to
possess him, may be represented by the smallest of zeros. The
consideration of so intricate a question belongs neither to the inventor
of fiction nor to the historian of facts, and may therefore be abandoned
to the political economist, who may, perhaps, be said to partake of the
nature of both while possessing the virtues of neither.

The Count was in prison, therefore, on the eve of his return to splendour,
and his companion in captivity was Dumnoff the mujik. They found
themselves in a well-ventilated room, having high grated windows, through
which t