ompoop and Samuelson is the whole thing."

The offices of the famous New York lawyer, Samuelson, were partitioned
off with wood and ground glass from an immense hall, a writing factory,
in which there was a horde of assistants working typewriters. Samuelson
made the impression of a man of nearly forty. He was not very tall, had a
bad, pallid complexion, and wore a short, pointed beard. The clothes of
this man, whose share of the firm's income was estimated at three hundred
thousand dollars a year, though of the correct cut, were by no means new;
in fact, they were rather shabby, and his entire appearance suggested
that he was scarcely a model of American cleanliness. He spoke in a very
low, thick voice, as if suffering from a sore throat.

Within less than fifteen minutes, the contract between Lilienfeld and
Ingigerd had been concluded, a contract, which owing to the fact that
Ingigerd was a minor, was no more valid than the contract with Webster
and Forster. Samuelson showed that he was informed of all the details of
the case of Hahlstroem _vs._ Webster and Forster. When the question of
their demands arose, he merely smiled with an air of great disdain and
said:

"We will quietly lie low and let them make the advance."

When Ingigerd and Frederick were sitting alone together in a closed cab
on the way home, he put his arms about her passionately.

"If you dance on the stage, Ingigerd, I'll go out of my mind. I feel as
if you and I and our love would be exposed in the pillory. If it were I
instead of you, it would not be half so hard to stand."

The poor young scholar began again to pour out before the little vampire
all the anguish he had been suffering, this time with hot kisses and
embraces.

"I am a drowning man. If you do not hold your hand out to me I shall sink
forever. You are stronger than I am. You can save me. The world is
nothing to me. What I lost is nothing, was nothing and will always be
nothing to me, if only I can exchange it for you. Come with me, and you
shall be all in all to me, the one thing of significance in my life."

"You are not weak," the girl whispered with a dying-away look in her
eyes. She breathed heavily, her narrow lips parted, and that fatal,
seductive smile spread over her languishing face, like a mask.

"Take me! Run away with me!"

For a time they were silent as the cab rolled along easily on its rubber
tires.

"They can wait a long while for you, Ingigerd," Frederick at