oor, and listened a moment. But as
there was an electric bell there he concluded he had been mistaken; and
picking up the other white cat, he began a gentle massage that stimulated
her purring, apparently at the expense of her color and size, for in a
few moments she also dwindled until she became a very small, coal-black
kitten, changing in a twinkling to a blackbird, when he cast her
carelessly toward the ceiling. It was well done; in all India no magician
could have done it more cleverly, more casually.

Leaning forward in his chair he reproduced the two white cats from behind
him, put the kittens back in their box, caught the blackbird and caged
it, and was carefully winding up the hairspring in the white butterfly,
when again he fancied that somebody was knocking.

[Illustration]

III

THE GREEN MOUSE

_Showing the Value of a Helping Hand When It Is White and Slender_

This time he went leisurely to the door and opened it; a girl stood
there, saying, "I beg your pardon for disturbing you--" It was high time
she admitted it, for her eyes had been disturbing him day and night since
the first time he passed her in the hall.

She appeared to be a trifle frightened, too, and, scarcely waiting for
his invitation, she stepped inside with a hurried glance behind her, and
walked to the center of the room holding her skirts carefully as though
stepping through wet grass.

"I--I am annoyed," she said in a voice not perfectly under command. "If
you please, would you tell me whether there is such a thing as a pea-
green mouse?"

Then he did a mean thing; he could have cleared up that matter with a
word, a smile, and--he didn't.

"A green mouse?" he repeated gently, almost pitifully.

She nodded, then paled; he drew a big chair toward her, for her knees
trembled a little; and she sat down with an appealing glance that ought
to have made him ashamed of himself.

"What has frightened you?" inquired that meanest of men.

"I was in my studio--and I must first explain to you that for weeks and
weeks I--I have imagined I heard sounds--" She looked carefully around
her; nothing animate was visible. "Sounds," she repeated, swallowing a
little lump in her white throat, "like the faint squealing and squeaking
and sniffing and scratching of--of live things. I asked the janitor, and
he said the house was not very well built and that the beams and
wainscoting were shrinking."

"Did he say that?" inquired the young m