smile i can listen now to his coarse tongue through me he has lost title and lands she nodded with great satisfaction and was rewarded with a black from who began to think that after all there might be truth in her speeches by this time who out of sheer bewilderment hitherto had the dwarf s chamber kept silent recovered his tongue and advanced towards what is the meaning of all this my lord he demanded anxiously is it a jest to amuse madam it is the truth replied addressing the young man for the first time by his name you are indeed my � the offspring of my son but that son died stammered looking at i saw his grave that is true enough answered lifting his head you saw his grave but that grave was empty who resembled that little creature was not buried there but was taken away by and given to he and not the father of miss was the heir to the estates you as his son inherit his rights and will succeed to my lord the grave was made and the erected to unnecessary questions it s a lie cried bringing his fist down on the table it is the truth retorted in as a tone if you doubt me ask your cousin he pointed to lord and would have immediately questioned him as to the rights of s assertion when madam unused to neglect forward and claimed the attention of the company lift me up on that chair she said to in a tone and look over my shoulder i will now explain to you the riddle and show you how to make out of burning with curiosity lifted her into the seat and looked at the paper which she spread out on the table also came closer in order to see if there was truth in these unpleasant which robbed him of his expected only her grandfather and dr held aloof they knew well the reading of the riddle and did not require to assist at the explanation with the the dwarf s chamber two young men looking down at that fatal piece of paper madam delighted at the prominent position she now occupied the riddle which had perplexed for so long you wonder perhaps why i guessed this the moment you gave it to me said the dwarf with an upward glance at but i would not have done it so quickly had i not invented the riddle myself you invented it madam yes you know i am fond of such things replied the little lady enjoying his wonder i invented � or rather selected this name which by the letters contains our family title but how do you know which letters to asked curiously i take the figures of the date of birth and place the letters in that order said madam complacently it is true that your father was born on the twenty fourth of december so to make the letters rightly i was forced to add ten years to that date and bring it up to then my father was forty three when he died cried noting the figures you surely did not go by this paper and think he was thirty three did you said the dwarf contemptuously in that case according to your age you were born when your father was only eleven years of age instead of which at the date of your birth he was twenty one that in itself is quite sufficient to show the of the whole thing said savagely nothing of the sort mr retorted promptly i did not know my father s age neither did he foolishly enough he believed this paper to be true but as he was a dwarf and scarcely so keen as other folk you can hardly blame him i saw the flaw of which � tn speaks long ago and it was that which made the dwarf s chamber me doubt whether the truth was to be found on this paper i am not so foolish added indignantly as not to know that this is and that if my father had been born in i could not possibly be his son well you see the explanation said madam quickly your father was born in and you when he was twenty one years of age i see that but how do you the letters madam placed before him a piece of paper on which was written the name and the date december bead that as she said the twelfth month for december now run all the figures together without division and they read now mr how many numbers are there eight good and how many letters are there in the name eight good and in the name going by the old way of it eight quite right said madam delighted at the way in which he followed her explanation now i apply the figures to the letters the first number is two what is the second letter of the name i l yes the second figure is four what is the fourth letter of the name there you are mr le now the first letter a the second again the first once more a the eighth n the fifth r and the seventh o now wliat does the whole spell the dwarf s chamber of course which is the old of our name cried madam clapping her hands i invented the name out of it by adding ten years to the birth as you see found the paper in my chamber and i have no doubt he gave it to your father quite ignorant of the hidden meaning could not sufficiently admire the ingenuity of the dwarf and her highly at which she was much gratified then it was true that his name was and that he was the of his patron with a flush of joy his face he advanced towards his grandfather and held 