He was tried by a jury and acquitted of murder. The defense was insanity. The court ordered his incarceration in a safe asylum. The police had received a severe lesson, and during the next month, while it was yet fresh in the public mind, they bestirred themselves, and sent a number of "harmless" lunatics, who had gone about unmolested, after him. I never heard of Erneste Dubourque again; but even now, after fifteen years, I find myself sometimes asking the old question: What was the story of wrong that bore such a crop of sorrow and darkness and murder? ABE'S GAME OF JACKS Time hung heavily on Abe Seelig's hands, alone, or as good as alone, in the flat on the "stoop" of the Allen-street tenement. His mother had gone to the butcher's. Chajim, the father,--"Chajim" is the Yiddish of "Herman,"--was long at the shop. To Abe was committed the care of his two young brothers, Isaac and Jacob. Abraham was nine, and past time for fooling. Play is "fooling" in the sweaters' tenements, and the muddling of ideas makes trouble, later on, to which the police returns have the index. "Don't let 'em on the stairs," the mother had said, on going, with a warning nod toward the bed where Jake and Ikey slept. He didn't intend to. Besides, they were fast asleep. Abe cast about him for fun of some kind, and bethought himself of a game of jacks. That he had no jackstones was of small moment to him. East-Side tenements, where pennies are infrequent, have resources. One penny was Abe's hoard. With that, and an accidental match, he began the game. It went on well enough, albeit slightly lopsided by reason of the penny being so much the weightier, until the match, in one unlucky throw, fell close to a chair by the bed, and, in falling, caught fire. Something hung down from the chair, and while Abe gazed, open-mouthed, at the match, at the chair, and at the bed right alongside, with his sleeping brothers on it, the little blaze caught it. The flame climbed up, up, up, and a great smoke curled under the ceiling. The children still slept, locked in each other's arms, and Abe--Abe ran. He ran, frightened half out of his senses, out of the room, out of the house, into the street, to the nearest friendly place he knew, a grocery-store five doors away, where his mother traded; but she was not there. Abe merely saw that she was not there, then he hid himself trembling. In all the block, where three thousand tenants live, no one knew what cruel thing was happening on the stoop of No. 19. A train passed on the elevated road, slowing up for the station near by. The engineer saw one wild whirl of fire within the room, and opening the throttle of his whistle wide, let out a screech so long and so loud that in ten seconds the street was black with men and women rushing out to see what dreadful thing had happened. No need of asking. From the door of the Seelig flat, burned through, fierce flames reached across the hall, barring the way. The tenement was shut in.