le profit in
selling their hides for leather. Unfortunately, the animal is unfit
for food. My labors, therefore, were bent upon creating a breed of
draught animals, creatures greater than elephants and with the agility
of guinea pigs. A team of these guinea pigs would outstrip the fastest
horse, though hauling a load of tons. The hide, too, would be
extremely valuable. I had at last reached a size beyond which I did
not care to go. Ribot and his mate were twice the bulk of elephants. I
was now ready to establish a herd. But alas! Two days ago, the mate
died. All my labors were for nothing. I had only the one enormous male
left. All the connecting links between him and the first small
ancestors are gone. But worse. As is often the case with male
elephants when the mate dies, Ribot went mad, ran amuck. Hitherto
docile and kind, as is the nature of the _Cavia cobaya_, vulgarly
called guinea pig, this evening Ribot became as you have seen him. I
have lost my labors. Momentarily I expect to lose my life."

"What's the matter with it now? Look at it, look at it," exclaimed
Nora.

Ribot had rolled on his back and after giving a few feeble twitches of
his great legs, remained without life, his legs pointing stiffly into
the air.

"He is dead," said Klingenspiel, and Nora was unable to tell whether
relief and joy or regret and despair predominated in this utterance.
"Ribot is dead. Our lives are saved, my experiment is ruined."

Turning toward Nora and scrutinizing her attentively for the first
time, he remarked, "How white your face is. The strain has been a
dreadful one. It has driven all the color away from you." And then
letting his eyes wander over her person until they paused upon her
hands resting in the moonlight upon the top of the sash, "and how
green your hands are. What can it be? Paris green," he said after a
close examination. "It was that which killed Ribot."

"I remember now. Father was sprinkling something on them. It is
cabbage worm time."

"I hope you will allow me to call," said Klingenspiel, and Nora
graciously assenting, he continued: "I admire your beauty, I admire
your many admirable qualities of head and heart, but above all, your
decision, your great decision."

"Oh, I don't think I showed much decision just because I threw the
cabbage out."

"I referred to your taking my ear and learning, out of its due order
in the thesis I was expounding, what manner of beast Ribot was. Ribot
killed two o