hat we could draw up the lines together and divide
the catch--you to get half, and I half?"

Then the old man stopped chopping and rested on his axe. He turned
his strange, half-dead eyes toward the child, and the shadow of a
smile crossed his face.

"Ah, now you put out the right bait!" he said. "That proposition
I'll not say no to."

AGRIPPA

The little girl was certainly a marvel! When she was only ten years
old she could manage even Agrippa Praestberg, the sight of whom was
enough to scare almost any one out of his wits.

Agrippa had yellow red-lidded eyes, topped with bushy eyebrows, a
frightful nose, and a wiry beard that stood out from his face like
raised bristles. His forehead was covered with deep wrinkles and
his figure was tall and ungainly. He always wore a ragged military
cap.

One day when the little girl sat all by herself on the flat stone
in front of the hut, eating her evening meal of buttered bread, she
espied a tall man coming down the lane whom she soon recognized as
Agrippa Praestberg. However, she kept her wits about her, and at
once broke and doubled her slice of bread buttered side in--then
slipped it under her apron.

She did not attempt to run away or to lock up the house, knowing
that that would be useless with a man of his sort; but kept her
seat. All she did was to pick up an unfinished stocking Katrina had
left lying on the stone when starting out with Jan's supper a while
ago, and go to knitting for dear life.

She sat there as if quite calm and content, but with one eye on the
gate. No, indeed, there was not a doubt about it--Agrippa intended
to pay them a visit, for just then he lifted the gate latch.

The little girl moved farther back on the stone and spread out her
skirt. She saw now that she would have to guard the house.

Glory Goldie knew, to be sure, that Agrippa Praestberg was not the
kind of man who would steal, and he never struck any one unless
they called him Grippie, or offered him buttered bread, nor did he
stop long at a place where folk had the good luck not to have a
Darlecarlian clock in the house.

Agrippa went about in the parish "doctoring" clocks, and once he
set foot in a house where there was a tall, old-fashioned chimney
clock he could not rest until he had removed the works, to see if
there was anything wrong with them. And he never failed to find
flaws which necessitated his taking the whole clock apart. That
meant he would be days putting i