“It was the razor he wanted,” the wife continued, “and when he come home and says he was going to leave the shop and he aint never going back there, and gets out his razor and sharps it, I knowed what that meant and I told him I got to have some bluing and wouldn’t he go and get it? and he says, ’You won’t git another husband run so free on your errands, Thekla,’ and I says I don’t want none; and when he was gone I hid the razor and he couldn’t find it, but that didn’t mad him, he didn’t say notings; and when I went to git the supper he walked out in the yard and jumped into the cistern, and I heard the splash and looked in and there he was trying to git his head under, and I called, ‘For the Lord’s sake, papa!  For the Lord’s sake!’ just like that.  And I fished for him with the pole that stood there and he was sorry and caught hold of it and give in, and I rested the pole agin the side cause I wasn’t strong enough to h’ist him out; and he held on whilest I run for help ——­”

“And I got the ladder and he clum out,” said the giant with another grin of recollection, “he was awful wet!”

“That was a month ago,” said the wife, solemnly.

“He sharped the razor onct,” said Mrs. Lieders, “but he said it was for to shave him, and I got him to promise to let the barber shave him sometime, instead.  Here, Mrs. Olsen, you go righd in, the door aint locked.”

By this time they were at the house door.  They passed in and ascended the stairs to the second story, then climbed a narrow, ladder-like flight to the garret.  Involuntarily they had paused to listen at the foot of the stairs, but it was very quiet, not a sound of movement, not so much as the sigh of a man breathing.  The wife turned pale and put both her shaking hands on her heart.

“Guess he’s trying to scare us by keeping quiet!” said Olsen, cheerfully, and he stumbled up the stairs, in advance.  “Thunder!” he exclaimed, on the last stair, “well, we aint any too quick.”

In fact Carl had nearly fallen over the master of the house, that enterprising self-destroyer having contrived, pinioned as he was, to roll over to the very brink of the stair well, with the plain intent to break his neck by plunging headlong.

In the dim light all that they could see was a small, old man whose white hair was strung in wisps over his purple face, whose deep set eyes glared like the eyes of a rat in a trap, and whose very elbows and knees expressed in their cramps the fury of an outraged soul.  When he saw the new-comers he shut his eyes and his jaws.

“Well, Mr. Lieders,” said Olsen, mildly, “I guess you better git down-stairs.  Kin I help you up?”

“No,” said Lieders.

“Will I give you an arm to lean on?”

“No.”

“Won’t you go at all, Mr. Lieders?”

“No.”