We sat, one day, before a cave which the strangers who frequent these mountains are accustomed to visit.  One hears there the rush of subterranean streams roaring up from immeasurable depths, and the stone cast in seemed, in its resounding fall, to find no bottom.  He painted to me, as he often did, with a vivid power of imagination and in the lustrous charms of the most brilliant colors, the most carefully finished pictures of what I might achieve in the world by virtue of my purse, if I had but once again my shadow in my possession.  With my elbows resting on my knees, I kept my face concealed in my hands and listened to the false one, my heart divided between his seduction and my own strong will.  I could not longer stand such an inward conflict, and the deciding strife began.

“You appear, sir, to forget that I have indeed allowed you, upon certain conditions, to remain in my company, but that I have reserved my perfect freedom.”

“If you command it, I pack up.”

He was accustomed to this menace.  I was silent.  He began immediately to roll up my shadow.  I turned pale, but I let it proceed.  There followed a long pause; he first broke it.

“You cannot bear me, sir.  You hate me; I know it; yet why do you hate me?  Is it because you attacked me on the highway, and sought to deprive me by violence of my bird’s nest?  Or is it because you have endeavored, in a thievish manner, to cheat me out of my property, the shadow, which was intrusted to you entirely on your honor?  I, for my part, do not hate you in spite of all this.  I find it quite natural that you should seek to avail yourself of all your advantages, cunning, and power.  Neither do I object to your very strict principles and to your fancy to think like honesty itself.  In fact, I think not so strictly as you; I merely act as you think.  Or have I at any time pressed my finger on your throat in order to bring to me your most precious soul, for which I have a fancy?  Have I, on account of my bartered purse, let a servant loose on you?  Have I sought to swindle you out of it?” I had nothing to oppose to this, and he proceeded:  “Very good, sir! very good!  You cannot endure me; I know that very well, and am by no means angry with you for it.  We must part, that is clear, and, in fact, you begin to be very wearisome to me.  In order, then, to rid you of my continued, shame-inspiring presence, I counsel you once more to purchase this thing from me.”  I extended to him the purse:  “At that price?”—­“No!”

I sighed deeply, and added, “Be it so, then.  I insist, sir, that we part, and that you no longer obstruct my path in a world which, it is to be hoped, has room enough in it for us both.”  He smiled, and replied:  “I go, sir; but first let me instruct you how you may ring for me when you desire to see again your most devoted servant.  You have only to shake your purse, so that the eternal gold pieces therein jingle, and the sound will instantly