arried him along towards the old place by Lal; but he only gave me a
lick, and died in my arms before I got there.

"I couldn't climb up to Lal with Sam in my arms, and I wouldn't leave
him, so I don't know how long it was I crouched down in the shadow and
cried over Sam--bitter tears I wept, I know. I was alone and utterly
wretched, and Sam wouldn't ever speak to me again, would never do any
more of his tricks. When I noticed that even in his death he hadn't
released the bag of biscuits from his mouth, my tears flowed anew, and
I couldn't somehow have touched one of them if I had been twice as
hungry as I was. My grief at the death of Sam was so great that I
didn't seem to want to tell Lal about it, so I lay huddled up by the
corner of the pedestal where the shadow is darkest for what must have
been some considerable time. Then I heard feet groping about and the
voice of Alderman Gold talking.

"For a long time I didn't care to listen to what he was talking to Lal
about. I heard the man say mockingly, 'Well, I suppose I'm beaten, and
you have been right all the time, my old wise Lion. What cannot be
endured, however, can sometimes be cured, so here's your health.'

"I heard a low angry growl from Lal, unlike any sound I had ever heard
him make before, then Lal raised his paw and knocked something out of
the Alderman's hand that fell with a tinkling sound of broken glass.

"I came slowly out of my corner to see what it was all about, and in
time to hear Lal say, 'You fool, oh! you fool, when will your eyes ever
be opened?'

"'I was going to close them for ever. What's the good of having them
open _when I cannot see_?'

"The Miser seemed to be angry as well as Lal, for his voice was
trembling with passion. 'Why,' continued the Miser, 'should I remain
_blind_ to please you, in order that all your prophecies may come true?
Why destroy the stuff I had bought just when I had need of it?'

"The Lion regarded the Miser steadily with those fine great eyes of
his, somehow he seemed to look the Miser right through; then the Lion
sniffed thrice, very contemptuously.

"'Do you know _why_ you are blind?' he asked the Miser.

"'No,' answered the man, 'to be going blind is terrible enough without
asking the reason of it; what matter what this or that theory may be,
when the thing is there to speak for itself? I know I cannot see, and
that being the case my life is finished.'

"'Or perhaps beginning,' ventured the L