I remembered the gilded wooden arm and hand, holding a lantern, which stood out from the one-armed man’s house, and it was only a matter of time to find it. I found it sooner than I expected. A light was burning dimly in the lantern, but the house was dark. There was no stork upon the housetop. I tried the handle of the door quietly, and to my surprise the door gave before me, and I pushed it open. _He Peeps into the Sorcerer’s Workshop_ I found myself in a dark room, which I crossed quickly to a door at the other side. This door I opened on a crack, and through the crack I looked into a lighted room; a small room, evidently a workshop, cluttered about with glass vessels of strange shapes, metal machines of various sorts, wooden hoops curiously interlaced, charts of the skies, and great, brass-bound books; and at one side of the room was a forge and in the center a table. Before this table was standing the one-armed man whom I had already seen. On the table, the stork with the necklace was lying on its side, perfectly still, and as I looked the old man plucked a feather from the stork’s wing and examined it carefully. He then cast it aside and plucked another, this time from the back. This also he tossed away, after examining it, and he then plucked a feather from the shoulder, and holding it up to the light gave a cry of pleasure, and without turning said, “Come in, Alb, I have been expecting you.” I stepped into the room, and the old man greeted me with a friendly smile, and held up the feather. “Do you see this?” said he. I looked at it closely. At the point of the quill hung a single drop of blood. The stork on the table stirred uneasily. The sorcerer stroked it gently and said, “Sleep!” and the stork lay perfectly still again. “Wait a minute,” said the old man. “We must keep this drop from falling off, and we must harden the point of the quill.” He produced from a closet a metal box, and out of this he took a small glass tube, covered with frost. He held the drop of blood for a moment inside the tube, and then put the tube away in its box. “Now,” said he, “the drop will not fall off.” He went to the forge, and blowing up the coals with a pair of bellows, he held the point of the quill for a moment in the fire. “Now,” said he, “it is as hard as a pin.” [Illustration: The One-Armed Sorcerer plucked a feather from the stork] “Sir,” said I, “will you tell me what this is for?” “To save the Ragpicker from herself,” said the sorcerer. “But it’s the Princess I have come to save,” said I. “It is the same thing,” said the old man. “If the Ragpicker is saved from herself, everybody else is saved too. And this drop of blood from the Princess’s heart will do it, and nothing else.” “I have seen the Ragpicker to-night, sir,” said I, “and I will tell you about it.” “Sit down, my son,” said the old man, and when we were seated I told him all that I had seen and heard in the Ragpicker’s cavern.