ith great satisfaction he paced about his room, stroking himself down
with his hands. He seemed actually so puffed up with satisfaction that
he had to let out the tasseled cord of his dressing-gown. Now
Petrovitsch is himself again, his every motion seemed to say; last
night you behaved like an old fool and forfeited all right to revile
the dish-clouts about you.

Pilgrim silently wended his way homeward, but, being in no mood for
entering his room at once, passed his house and took a long walk
through the fields. On returning, he was most agreeably surprised by
finding his friend's little boy. That is the way, he thought, when
friends heartily love one another. At the very moment I was thinking of
Lenz, his heart was full of me. Perhaps he had a presentiment of my
intended visit to Petrovitsch, and so sent his boy to help my petition.
But the child could have done no good. The voices of men and angels
would have been alike useless.

There was no end to the games Pilgrim invented, and the pictures he
drew, for the child's entertainment. Little William screamed with
delight at the hare and hounds made out of a handkerchief and a black
necktie, and called for the same stories over and over again. Pilgrim's
great story was of a Turk named Kulikali, who had an immense nose and
could swallow smoke. He dressed himself up like the Turk Kulikali, and
spreading a cloth on the floor, sat in the middle of it with his legs
crossed, and played all manner of tricks. He was as much of a child for
the time as his little godson. After dinner, which they ate down stairs
with Don Bastian, William insisted on being taken, in spite of the
sleet and slosh, down to the brook. That was the best fun of all. Great
blocks of ice went floating by with ravens perched upon them; and when
one of their rafts cracked and broke to pieces, the ravens flew up and
perched upon another. It was dizzying to look down on them from the
height where the two stood. The earth seemed to be in motion while the
ice stood still. The child clung anxiously to Pilgrim. When that
entertainment failed, Pilgrim took his godson home and made him up a
bed on his well-worn sofa, which they agreed should be little Lenz's
own, and he should never go away any more. "At home papa cries," the
little fellow said; "and mamma too; and mamma says papa is a wicked
man." Poor Pilgrim was cut to the heart at hearing of it. The snow and
rain increased so much in violence, and the avalanch