ently raimented, with the
shiniest of silk hats and a flower in the buttonhole of his frock-coat,
received us at the door of a small house, the first-floor windows of
which announced the tenancy of a maker of gymnastic appliances; and
having kissed Madame Brandt's hand with awful solemnity and bowed deeply
to me, he preceded us down the passage, out into the yard, and into a
ramshackle studio at the end, where his cats had their being.

There were fourteen of them, curled up in large cages standing against
the walls. The place was lit by a skylight and warmed by a stove.
The floor, like a stage, was fitted up with miniature acrobatic
paraphernalia and properties. There were little five-barred gates, and
trapezes, and tight-ropes, and spring-boards, and a trestle-table, all
the metal work gleaming like silver. A heavy, uncouth German lad, whom
the professor introduced as his pupil and assistant, Quast, was in
attendance. Mr. Papadopoulos polyglotically acknowledged the honour I
had conferred upon him. He is very like the late Emperor of the French;
but his forehead is bulgier.

With a theatrical gesture and the remark that I should see, he opened
some cages and released half a dozen cats--a Persian, a white Angora,
and four commonplace tabbies, who all sprang on to the table with
military precision. Madame Brand began to caress them. I, wishing to
show interest in the troupe, prepared to do the same; but the dwarf
scurried up with a screech from the other end of the room.

_"Ne touchez pas--ne touchez pas!"_

I refrained, somewhat wonderingly, from touching. Madame Brandt
explained.

"He thinks you would spoil the magnetic influence. It is a superstition
of his."

"But you are touching."

"He believes I have his magnetism--whatever that may be," she said, with
a smile. "Would you like to see an experiment? Anastasius!"

"Carissima."

"Is that the untamed Persian you were telling me of?" she asked,
pointing to a cage from which a ferocious gigantic animal more like a
woolly tiger than a tom-cat looked out with expressionless yellow eyes.
"Will you let Mr. de Gex try to make friends with it?"

"Your will is law, meine Konigin," replied Professor Papadopoulos,
bowing low. "But Hephaestus is as fierce as the flames of hell."

"See what he'll do," laughed Lola Brandt.

I approached the cage with an ingratiating, "Puss, puss!" and a hideous
growl welcomed me. I ventured my hand towards the bars. The beast
brist