So the judge sent out his bailiffs in search of the man. They met the honest fellow walking slowly and carelessly on, and, on searching him, found the money-bag in question. When he was taken before the judge he said, "I have not touched the Turk, nor have I taken away his money; he offered it me of his own free will, if I would but leave off playing the fiddle, as he could not bear my music." "Not a word of truth in it!" cried the Turk, "those are bare-faced lies." And the judge not believing it either, said, "That is a very poor excuse;" and sentenced the poor man to the gallows for highway robbery. As he was being taken away, the Turk cried after him, "You lubber! you shall now get your well-deserved punishment!" The poor man ascended the ladder very composedly, accompanied by the executioner; but when he had got up to the top of it, he turned round and addressed the judge, saying, "May it please your honor to grant me but one last request before I die!" "Anything but your life," replied the other. "I do not ask my life," said Fritz; "only let me play one tune upon my fiddle for the last time." The Turk cried out, "Oh, no, no! for pity's sake don't let him! don't let him!" But the judge said, "Why should I not grant him this last request? He shall do so." The fact was, he _could not_ say no, because the dwarf's third gift enabled Fritz to make everyone grant whatever he asked. Then the Turk said, "Bind me fast, bind me fast, bind me fast, for pity's sake!" But the condemned man seized his fiddle and struck up a merry tune; and at the first note, judge, clerks, and jailor were set agoing; at the second note, all began capering and the hangman let his prisoner go, and prepared to dance; at the third note all were dancing and springing together, and the judge and the Turk took the lead and sprang the highest. In a little while all the market people who were looking on, old and young, stout and lean, were dancing together; even the very dogs that had come along with them were up on their hind legs, and were leaping along with the rest. And the longer the fiddler played, the higher the dancers capered, so that they knocked their heads together and began to cry out piteously. At last the judge exclaimed, quite out of breath, "I grant you your life; do but give over playing." Then Fritz suffered himself to be persuaded, stopped playing, and, hanging his fiddle round his neck, came down the ladder. Then, stepping up to the Turk, who was lying breathless on the ground, he said, "You scoundrel! now confess where you got that money from, or I will take my fiddle down and make you dance to another tune." "I stole it, I stole it!" cried he; "but it is you who have won it fairly." The judge then had the Turk taken to the gallows and hung as a thief. * * * * * The sober second thought is always essential, and seldom wrong. MARTIN VAN BUREN. [Illustration] LITTLE LOTTIE'S GRIEVANCE. PAUL H. HAYNE.