Page:Weird Tales volume 02 number 03.djvu/90

Rh ment; mainly because I could not understand. Something, I knew, was wrong. I could sense it. But I knew not what.

"I rushed back with the water in my hand. And then I stopped. Stopped and stood still, the glass in my hand, looking for my strange companions. They were gone!

"Gone? No! There they were upon the floor, incredibly diminutive! They were not more than six inches high. The man was holding the maiden in his arms. He was waving and gesticulating; and he was pointing at my thumb!

"I stooped down, and at his sign held my thumb upon the floor. I remember speaking and wondering why I spoke.

Here,' I said. 'Hop on my thumb.'

"Which he did.

"He was not much taller now than a fly. I watched him run over the nail and drop over the edge. The maiden was still in his arms. Then he disappeared.

"I caught up a microscope. Through the lense everything was larger; and I got one last glimpse. He was standing just under the edge of my thumb nail, looking up. He waved his hand. Then he turned and fled under the thumb nail with the maiden!"

Such was Professor Mason's story.

"Well?" I asked.

Professor Mason did not answer. He lapsed into deep thought. The same abstraction that I had noted during the previous nights returned to his features.

"Well?" I asked again.

He looked up.

"That is my story. I would like my microscope."

His voice had its old plaintiveness. It was the same tone that I had heard earlier in the evening. I passed him back his microscope. Professor Mason is a good old soul.

When I left him he was peering through the lens at his thumb.

THE END.

 

 foot through the moss covering, and had discovered the heavy leather bag.

Uncomplainingly, the tired father carried the bag of gold home. He counted the money out on the table—one thousand nine hundred and twenty-three dollars in gold.

"A dollar for every year of the Christian era!" exclaimed the pious Mr. Diggs.

Truly it was enough to make even a worldly man rejoice spiritually. Danny had indeed discovered the tree with the golden leaves!