is eyes.

"It always affects me to relate that adventure," he remarked, returning
the handkerchief to his pocket. "Ingratitude--base, vile ingratitude--is
recalled by it! That man, that man, who but for me would have perished
in the pathless wilds of Russia, that man in the hour of my adversity
forsook me." The German looked up. "Yes," said Bonaparte, "I had money,
I had lands; I said to my wife: 'There is Africa, a struggling country;
they want capital; they want men of talent; they want men of ability to
open up that land. Let us go.'

"I bought eight thousand pounds' worth of machinery--winnowing, plowing,
reaping machines; I loaded a ship with them. Next steamer I came
out--wife, children, all. Got to the Cape. Where is the ship with
the things? Lost--gone to the bottom! And the box with the money?
Lost--nothing saved!

"My wife wrote to the Duke of Wellington's nephew; I didn't wish her to;
she did it without my knowledge.

"What did the man whose life I saved do? Did he send me thirty thousand
pounds? say, 'Bonaparte, my brother, here is a crumb?' No; he sent me
nothing.

"My wife said, 'Write.' I said, 'Mary Ann, NO. While these hands have
power to work, NO. While this frame has power to endure, NO. Never shall
it be said that Bonaparte Blenkins asked of any man.'"

The man's noble independence touched the German.

"Your case is hard; yes, that is hard," said the German, shaking his
head.

Bonaparte took another draught of the soup, leaned back against the
pillows, and sighed deeply.

"I think," he said after a while, rousing himself, "I shall now wander
in the benign air, and taste the gentle cool of evening. The stiffness
hovers over me yet; exercise is beneficial."

So saying, he adjusted his hat carefully on the bald crown of his head,
and moved to the door. After he had gone the German sighed again over
his work:

"Ah, Lord! So it is! Ah!"

He thought of the ingratitude of the world.

"Uncle Otto," said the child in the doorway, "did you ever hear of ten
bears sitting on their tails in a circle?"

"Well, not of ten exactly: but bears do attack travellers every day. It
is nothing unheard of," said the German. "A man of such courage, too!
Terrible experience that!"

"And how do we know that the story is true, Uncle Otto?"

The German's ire was roused.

"That is what I do hate!" he cried. "Know that is true! How do you know
that anything is true? Because you are told so. If we begin to qu