d only two thin tufts of gray hair
above his ears. He was seized with the desire to make the lawyer cry.

But suddenly he bowed slightly to his friend and said: "Please forgive
Michael Petroff!" He walked across the room, then turned to his guest
and said in precisely his usual tone: "Will the fair weather last
today?"

"I think so--I am not sure," answered the lawyer doubtfully.

"Well, we will play cricket this afternoon. Are you cold?"

"Yes," whispered the lawyer and drew his scarf closer.

Michael Petroff gazed at him with his head on one side. "I cannot
understand how you can be cold today." And he laughed gaily. "Come,"
said he, "let us--" he paused, for he did not know what he wanted to
do--"Let us--Oh yes, let us go and see Friend Engelhardt. Come!--The
Doctor was with him last night," he ended mysteriously.

"The Doctor?"

"Yes. Our friend is ill. Hm, hm." Michael Petroff carefully locked up
the manuscript of his newspaper, put on a big gray English traveling
cap, looked in the glass, and they left the room together. Michael
Petroff laughed a soft guttural laugh. At Engelhardt's door they paused
to listen, and then knocked.--

There were two great days in the year for Michael Petroff.

One was his birthday, the sixteenth of May. Michael Petroff never
forgot it. On May sixteenth he would walk about with an important air,
and looking about him he would say to every one he met: "This is my
birthday. I thank you for your good wishes!" The attendant always came
before dinner and asked him to come to Dr. Maerz's room to receive his
congratulations.

Then Michael Petroff would go, with quick, light steps to Dr. Maerz's
parlor, shake hands with him and thank him for the wonderful bouquet of
white roses that Dr. Maerz gave him.

Michael never suspected where the bunch of white roses came from. He
did not know that, on his birthday, his wife and daughter stood behind
the portiere of the parlor, nor that they made the long journey every
year to see him. The first few years the Captain's wife had had golden
hair, but it had gradually turned gray, and now it was white, although
she was still quite a young woman. Formerly she used to come alone, but
for three years past she had always been accompanied by a young lady,
who wept bitterly when she arrived and when she went away. This young
lady had but one ear and concealed the disfigurement by the way in
which she dressed her hair. Michael Petroff had cut off her