ry, but the thing seemed impossible.
"She would never consent," he protested.

The hunchback laughed softly, a low laugh of self-confidence. "Look at
me, monseigneur," he said, "AEsop the hunchback, but do not laugh while
you look and damn me for an impossible gallant. Crooked and withered as I
am, I have power to make women love me. Let me try. If I fail to win the
girl, do what you please with her, and I will ask no more."

Gonzague looked keenly at the bowed, supplicating figure. "Are you
thinking of playing me false?" he murmured. "Do you dream of taking the
girl to give her to her mother?"

The hunchback laughed--a dry, strident laugh. "Would AEsop be a welcome
son-in-law to the Princess de Gonzague?"

Gonzague seemed to feel the force of the hunchback's reasoning. To marry
the girl to this malformed assassin was to destroy her more utterly, she
still living, than to destroy her by taking her life. "Well," he
said--"well, you shall try your luck. If she marries you, she is out of
my way. If she refuses you, you shall be avenged for her disdain. We can
always revert to my first intention."

A slight shudder seemed to pass over the distorted form of the hunchback,
but he responded with familiar confidence: "She will not disdain me."

Gonzague laughed. "Confident wooer. When do you mean to woo?"

The hunchback came a little nearer to him and spoke, eagerly: "No time
like the present, highness. I thought that on this night of triumph for
you I could provide for you and your friends such an entertainment as no
other man in all Paris could command. I have ventured to summon your
notary. Let your supper be my wedding-feast, your guests my witnesses.
Bring the girl and I will win her. I am sure of it--sure."

Gonzague was too well-bred, too scholarly a man not to have a well-bred,
scholarly sense of humor. His nimble Italian fancy saw at once the
contrasts between his noisy company of light men and loose women and the
withered hunchback who was a murderer and the beautiful girl whom he had
robbed of her birthright and was now ready to rob of her honor. "It will
be a good jest," he murmured.

The hunchback indorsed his words: "The best jest in the world. You will
laugh and laugh and laugh to watch the hunchback's courtship."

Gonzague turned again towards the doors. "I must rejoin my guests," he
said; "but you look something glum and dull for a suitor. You should have
fine clothes, fellow; they will stimulate your