I invite this honored company to join me there.
Personally I look upon the disappearance of these arms as an all-wise
intervention of Providence, which sets its own inscrutable wisdom up
against the wisdom which we would otherwise have heard from the lips
of my venerable friend Soelling."

Daae's confused speech was received with laughter and applause, and
Soelling's weak protests were lost in the general delight at the
invitation. I have often noticed that such improvised festivities are
usually the most enjoyable, and so it was for us that evening. Niels
Daae treated us to his ducks and to his most amusing jokes, Soelling
sang his best songs, our jovial host Mathiesen told his wittiest
stories, and the merriment was in full swing when we heard cries in
the street, and then a rush of confused noises broken by screams of
pain.

"There's been an accident," cried Soelling, running out to the door.

We all followed him and discovered that a pair of run-away horses had
thrown a carriage against a tree, hurling the driver from his box,
under the wheels. His right arm had been broken near the shoulder. In
the twinkling of an eye the hall of festivities was transformed into
an emergency hospital. Soelling shook his head as he examined the
injury, and ordered the transport of the patient to the city hospital.
It was his belief that the arm would have to be amputated, cut off at
the shoulder joint, just as had been the case with our skeleton.
"Damned odd coincidence, isn't it?" he remarked to me.

Our merry mood had vanished and we took our way, quiet and depressed,
through the old avenues toward our home. For the first time in its
existence possibly, our venerable "barracks," as we called the
dormitory, saw its occupants returning home from an evening's bout
just as the night watchman intoned his eleven o'clock verse.

"Just eleven," exclaimed Soelling. "It's too early to go to bed, and
too late to go anywhere else. We'll go up to your room, little Simsen,
and see if we can't have some sort of a lesson this evening. You have
your colored plates and we'll try to get along with them. It's a
nuisance that we should have lost those arms just this evening."

"The Doctor can have all the arms and legs he wants," grinned Hans,
who came out of the doorway just in time to hear Soelling's last word.

"What do you mean, Hans?" asked Soelling in astonishment.

"It'll be easy enough to get them," said Hans. "They've torn down the
p