eaven, and although exempt from vanity and free from all social
prejudice, he was immensely desirous of showing himself sincere and
truthful in all things. He therefore proclaimed the illustrious rank in
which his birth had placed him in the celestial hierarchy and translated
into French his title of Cherub by the equivalent one of Prince, calling
himself Prince Istar. Seeking shelter among mankind he had developed an
ardent love for them. While awaiting the coming of the hour when he
should deliver Heaven from bondage, he dreamed of the salvation of
regenerate humanity and was eager to consummate the destruction of this
wicked world, in order to raise upon its ashes, to the sound of the
lyre, a city radiant with happiness and love. A chemist in the pay of a
dealer in nitrates, he lived very frugally. He wrote for newspapers with
advanced views on liberty, spoke at public meetings, and had got himself
sentenced several times to several months' imprisonment for
anti-militarism.

Istar greeted his brother Arcade cordially, approved of his rupture with
the party of crime, and informed him of the descent of fifty of the
children of light who, at the present moment, formed a colony near Val
de Grace, imbued with a really excellent spirit.

"It is simply raining angels in Paris," he said, laughing. "Every day
some dignitary of the sacred palace falls on one's head, and soon the
Sultan of the Cherubs will have no one to make into Vizirs or guards but
the little unbreeched vagabonds of his pigeon coops."

Soothed by the good news, Arcade fell asleep, full of happiness and
hope.

He awoke in the early dawn and saw Prince Istar bending over his
furnaces, his retorts, and his test tubes. Prince Istar was working for
the good of humanity.

Every morning when Arcade woke he saw Prince Istar fulfilling his work
of tenderness and love. Sometimes the Kerub, huddled up with his head in
his hands, would softly murmur a few chemical formulae; at others,
drawing himself up to his full height, like a dark naked column, with
his head, his arms, nay, his entire bust clean out of the sky-light
window, he would deposit his melting-pot on the roof, fearing the
perquisition with which he was constantly menaced. Moved by an immense
pity for the miseries of the world wherein he dwelt in exile, conscious
perhaps of the rumours to which his name gave rise, inebriated with his
own virtue, he played the part of apostle to the Human Race, and
negl