top of the stove, in which sparkled a peat fire. On the stove were

smoking a porringer and a saucepan, containing to all appearance

something to eat. The savoury odour was perceptible. The hut was

furnished with a chest, a stool, and an unlighted lantern which hung

from the ceiling. Besides, to the partition were attached some boards on

brackets and some hooks, from which hung a variety of things. On the

boards and nails were rows of glasses, coppers, an alembic, a vessel

rather like those used for graining wax, which are called granulators,

and a confusion of strange objects of which the child understood

nothing, and which were utensils for cooking and chemistry. The caravan

was oblong in shape, the stove being in front. It was not even a little

room; it was scarcely a big box. There was more light outside from the

snow than inside from the stove. Everything in the caravan was

indistinct and misty. Nevertheless, a reflection of the fire on the

ceiling enabled the spectator to read in large letters,--

URSUS, PHILOSOPHER.

The child, in fact, was entering the house of Homo and Ursus. The one he

had just heard growling, the other speaking.

The child having reached the threshold, perceived near the stove a man,

tall, smooth, thin and old, dressed in gray, whose head, as he stood,

reached the roof. The man could not have raised himself on tiptoe. The

caravan was just his size.

Come in!" said the man, who was Ursus.

The Man Who Laughs