an uncarpeted and nearly dark stair. On the landing above a gas
lamp was burning, and opening a door immediately facing the stair the
stranger conducted me into a barely furnished and untidy room.

The atmosphere smelled like that of a pot-house, the odours of stale
spirits and of tobacco mingling unpleasantly. As my guide removed
his hat and stood there, a square, gaunt figure in his queer, caped
overcoat, I secured for the first time a view of his face in profile;
and found it to be startlingly unfamiliar. Seen thus, my acquaintance
was another man. I realized that there was something unnatural about the
long, white hair, the gray face; that the sharp outline of brow, nose,
and chin was that of a much younger man than I had supposed him to be.

All this came to me in a momentary flash of perception, for immediately
my attention was riveted upon a figure hunched up on a dilapidated sofa
on the opposite side of the room. It was that of a big man, bearded and
very heavily built, but whose face was scarred as by years of suffering,
and whose eyes confirmed the story indicated by the smell of stale
spirits with which the air of the room was laden. A nearly empty bottle
stood on a table at his elbow, a glass beside it, and a pipe lay in a
saucer full of ashes near the glass.

As we entered, the glazed eyes of the man opened widely and he clutched
at the table with big red hands, leaning forward and staring horribly.

Save for this derelict figure and some few dirty utensils and scattered
garments which indicated that the apartment was used both as sleeping
and living room, there was so little of interest in the place that
automatically my wandering gaze strayed from the figure on the sofa to
a large oil painting, unframed, which rested upon the mantelpiece above
the dirty grate, in which the fire had become extinguished.

I uttered a stifled exclamation. It was "A Dream at Dawn"--evidently the
original painting!

On the left of it, from a nail in the wall, hung a violin and bow, and
on the right stood a sort of cylindrical glass case or closed jar, upon
a wooden base.

From the moment that I perceived the contents of this glass case a sense
of fantasy claimed me, and I ceased to know where reality ended and
mirage began.

It contained a tiny and perfect figure of a man. He was arrayed in a
beautifully fitting dress-suit such as a doll might have worn, and he
was posed as if in the act of playing a violin, although n