invention that you had just made; you explained to me in detail the mechanism of your famous gun. I was intelligent; I understood, or thought I understood. This gun, you said, would one day make my fortune, for, on your own account, you had renounced all hope; you had heart-disease, and you knew that you were condemned to a speedy end. My imagination was kindled. Through my entreaty you decided to leave with me for Vienna. This expedition was fatal to you, but I swear to you I did not foresee it.” Samuel crossed his hands on his knee; then he continued: “May my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, may my blood cease to flow in my veins, may the marrow dry up in my bones, if ever I forget to be grateful for what I owe to you, Abel Larinski, or cease to remember the forlorn hovel in which we passed the first night of our journey! You were attacked by suffocation. You had only time to call and wake me. I hastened to you. You gave me, in a dying voice, your last instructions. You delivered into my hands your last fifty florins, which were as acceptable as an orange would have been to the shipwrecked passengers of the Medusa. Then you pointed with your finger to a box, in which were inclosed family relics, letters, your journal, and papers. You said: ‘Destroy all that; Poland is dead, let no one remember that I have lived!’ After that you breathed your last. Well! I confess that I did not fulfil your orders. I kept your mother’s portrait, the papers, all; and, in announcing your decease to the police, I made them believe that the man who was dead was named Samuel Brohl, and that Count Larinski still lived. What would you have me do? The temptation was too great. Samuel Brohl had disgraceful antecedents, he was base-born, he had been sold; there was a stain on his past that never could be wiped away, and, as he had had the misfortune to read the poets, it had come about that he often despised himself. It was, indeed, time that he should be thrown into the shade, and my joy was extreme to know that he was dead, and to feel that I was alive. As soon as I succeeded in persuading myself that I was indeed Count Abel Larinski, I was as happy as a child whose parents have dressed him in new clothes, and who struts about to show them. With your name I acquired a noble past; in thought, I roamed through it with delight; I visited its every nook and corner, as a poor devil would make the circuit of a park that he has just come to inherit. You bequeathed me your relations, your adventures, your exploits. When you fought for your country, I was there; when you received a gun-shot-wound near Dubrod, it was into my flesh that the bullet penetrated. Of what do you complain? Between friends is not everything in common? I left my own skin, I entered yours; I was satisfied there, and desired to remain. To-day I resemble you in everything; I assure you that if we were seen together it would be difficult to tell us apart. I have assumed your