cord that bound the
midget's hands. Then he hurried toward the door.

The boy unloosed the bands around his ankles and tore away the gag
before thinking of anything else. When he turned to Clement to thank
him, he had gone.

Just outside the door Clement met a handsome, noble-looking gentleman,
who was on his way to a place close by from which there was a beautiful
outlook. Clement could not recall having seen the stately old man
before, but the latter must surely have noticed Clement sometime when he
was playing the fiddle, because he stopped and spoke to him.

"Good day, Clement!" he said. "How do you do? You are not ill, are you?
I think you have grown a bit thin of late."

There was such an expression of kindliness about the old gentleman that
Clement plucked up courage and told him of his homesickness.

"What!" exclaimed the old gentleman. "Are you homesick when you are in
Stockholm? It can't be possible!" He looked almost offended. Then he
reflected that it was only an ignorant old peasant from Haelsingland that
he talked with--and so resumed his friendly attitude.

"Surely you have never heard how the city of Stockholm was founded? If
you had, you would comprehend that your anxiety to get away is only a
foolish fancy. Come with me to the bench over yonder and I will tell you
something about Stockholm."

When the old gentleman was seated on the bench he glanced down at the
city, which spread in all its glory below him, and he drew a deep
breath, as if he wished to drink in all the beauty of the landscape.
Thereupon he turned to the fiddler.

"Look, Clement!" he said, and as he talked he traced with his cane a
little map in the sand in front of them. "Here lies Uppland, and here,
to the south, a point juts out, which is split up by a number of bays.
And here we have Soermland with another point, which is just as cut up
and points straight north. Here, from the west, comes a lake filled with
islands: It is Lake Maelar. From the east comes another body of water,
which can barely squeeze in between the islands and islets. It is the
East Sea. Here, Clement, where Uppland joins Soermland and Maelaren joins
the East Sea, comes a short river, in the centre of which lie four
little islets that divide the river into several tributaries--one of
which is called Norristroem but was formerly Stocksund.

"In the beginning these islets were common wooded islands, such as one
finds in plenty on Lake Maelar even to-day,