nimal with wings."

"Oh, a bat!"

"Nay, nay, a little animal with wings and many legs. Dear me! I forget
the name in English, but you certainly know it in America--a very
small animal!"

In vain I tried to make a selection from all the little animals of my
acquaintance with wings and many legs. The case was getting both
embarrassing and vexatious. At length a light broke upon me.

"A musquito!" I exclaimed, triumphantly.

"Nay, nay!" cried the bothered poet; "a little animal with a hard skin
on its back. Dear me, I can't remember the name!"

"Oh, I have it now," said I, really desirous of relieving his mind--"a
flea!"

At this the great improvisator scratched his head, looked at the
ceiling and then at the floor, after which he took several rapid
strides up and down the room, and struck himself repeatedly on the
forehead. Suddenly grasping up a pen, he exclaimed, somewhat
energetically, "Here! I'll draw it for you;" and forthwith he drew on
a scrap of paper a diagram, of which the accompanying engraving is a
fac-simile.

[Illustration]

"A tumble-bug!" I shouted, astonished at my former stupidity.

The poet looked puzzled and distressed. Evidently I had not yet
succeeded. What could it be?

"A beetle!" I next ventured to suggest, rather disappointed at the
result of my previous guess.

"A beetle! A beetle!--that's it; now I remember--a beetle!" and the
delighted author of "The Beetle" patted me approvingly on the back,
and chuckled gleefully at his own adroit method of explanation. "I'll
give you 'The Beetle,'" he said; "you shall have the only copy in my
possession. But you don't read Danish! What are we to do? There is a
partial translation in French--a mere notice."

"No matter," I answered. "A specimen of the Danish language will be
very acceptable, and the book will be a pleasant souvenir of my
visit."

He then darted into the next room, tumbled over a dozen piles of
books, then out again, ransacked the desks, and drawers, and heaps of
old papers and rubbish, talking all the time in his joyous, cheery way
about his books and his travels in Jutland, and his visit to Charles
Dickens, and his intended journey through Spain, and his delight at
meeting a traveler all the way from California, and whatever else came
into his head--all in such mixed-up broken English that the meaning
must have been utterly lost but for the wonderful expressiveness of
his face and the striking oddity of his motions. It