Again Marny's eyes rested for a moment on the miniature; then he went on:

"We were about broke when I painted it," he said. "There was a fair of some sort in the village, and I got an old frame for half a mark in a pawnshop, borrowed a coat from Fritz, the stableman, squeezed Fiddles into it, stuck a student's cap on his head, made it look a hundred years old—the frame was all of that—and tried to sell it as a portrait of a 'Gentleman of the Last Century,' but it wouldn't work. Fiddles's laugh gave it away. 'Looks like you,' the old man said. 'Yes, it's my brother,' he blurted out, slapping the dealer on the back."

"Where did you pick Fiddles up?" I asked.

"Nowhere," answered Marny; "he picked me up. That is, the gendarme did who had him by the coat collar."

"'This fellow insists you know him,' said the officer of the law. 'He says that he is honest and that this rabbit'—here he pointed to a . . . Read More