on. "It can't do any harm, and it may supplement
Miss Gannion's story. He is that unhappy being, the youngest son of a
younger son, and he has more ancestors than money. His father ran away
to escape army service, and forgot to provide for his wife and children.
The children died, all but two, Otto and a sister eight years older. He
was half through his musical training, when she had a fall that crippled
her, and the boy had to give up study and take to teaching. For two
years, he fought a losing fight, giving lessons to stolid youngsters,
playing at cheap concerts wherever he could get an engagement, and all
the time slowly dropping deeper and deeper into debt. One night, he
fainted in the middle of the accompaniment to _The Erl-King_, and it
looked as if the King had claimed him. There were a couple of Americans
in the hall who had been watching him for weeks, and they began to
investigate the case. Arlt, it seems, hadn't eaten anything for two
days; and, just as he had started for the concert, he had received legal
notice that the next day his mother and sister would be turned into the
street, because the rent was unpaid."

"And then?" Sally queried, as Thayer came to a full stop.

"Then they took him out to supper," he replied prosaically.

"And then?" Sally persisted.

Thayer spoke with some reluctance.

"Then they found him an engagement that paid a better salary, and they
bullied him into accepting a little loan, until the first week's payday
came around."

"That was so good of you!" Beatrix said impulsively.

He raised his brows.

"I wasn't the only American in Berlin at the time, Miss Dane."

"No; you said there were two of you. But there is no use in your denying
that you were the one who sang _The Erl-King_."

"Circumstantial evidence convicts you, Thayer," Bobby said, coming to
the support of his cousin. "You sang; you also fed him. Likewise, you
brought him to America. Then wherefore deny?"

"There's no reason I should deny. I like Arlt, and for weeks I had been
trying to get him as accompanist, so I gained by the affair. The other
fellow didn't, though. He was no musician; but the case interested him.
He not only backed Arlt financially, but he hunted up the mother and
sister and did no end of nice things for them, the things that count:
rolling chairs and extract of beef and all that stuff. He had nothing
to make by the transaction."

"Were they properly grateful?" Bobby inquired.

"Yes,