y could be made
responsible for the terrible accident. Why did he go to the bears when
he was not sober?

But that very day the siren of Bosnia danced her wild dance again in
the next village, and with her sweet, melodious voice urged the
light-colored little bear: "Mariska, jump, jump!"

ARTHUR ELCK

_THE TOWER ROOM_

There were many wonderful things that aroused our childish fantasy,
when Balint Orzo and I were boys, but none so much as the old tower
that stands a few feet from the castle, shadowy and mysterious. It is
an old, curious, square tower, and at the brink of its notched edge
there is a shingled helmet which was erected by one of the late Orzos.

There is many and many a legend told about this old tower. A rumor
exists that it has a secret chamber into which none is permitted to
enter, except the head of the family. Some great secret is concealed
in the tower-room, and when the first-born son of the Orzo family
becomes of age his father takes him there and reveals it. And the
effect of the revelation is such that every young man who enters that
room comes out with gray hair.

As to what the secret might be, there was much conjecturing. One
legend had it that once some Orzo imprisoned his enemies in the tower
and starved them until the unfortunates ate each other in their crazed
suffering.

According to another story Kelemen Orzo ordered his faithless wife
Krisztina Olaszi to be plastered into the wall of the room. Every
night since, sobbing is heard from the tower.

Another runs that every hundred years a child with a dog's face is
born in the Orzo family and that this little monster has to perish in
the tower-room, so as to hide the disgrace of the family.

Another conjecture was that once the notorious Menyhart Orzo, who was
supreme under King Rudolph in the castle, played a game of checkers
with his neighbor, Boldizsar Zomolnoky. They commenced to play on a
Monday and continued the game and drank all week until Sunday morning
dawned upon them. Then Menyhart Orzo's confessor came and pleaded with
the gamblers. He begged them to stop the game on the holy day of
Sunday, when all true Christians are in church praising the Lord. But
Menyhart, bringing his fist down on the table in such rage that all
the wine glasses and bottles danced, cried: "And if we have to sit
here till the world comes to an end, we won't stop till we have
finished this game!"

Scarcely had he uttered his vow when, s