"To show you the pettiness of Stahle's revenge, I will mention one or two incidents:
"One evening, while walking my room, a needle penetrated the thin sole of my slipper, and was at once half buried in my foot. Three times, with all my strength, I tried to extricate it; the fourth, and I was still unsuccessful; both strength and courage now failed me. Stahle, from the other side of the room, looked coolly on, and, with a Satanic smile, said, 'Why don't you pull again?' With the courage inspired by this brutal question, I seized the protruding point of the needle with my trembling fingers, and finally succeeded in withdrawing it.
"That evening sharp pains commenced shooting through my foot, extending quite to my side. I began to grow uneasy as they increased, and requested Stahle to send for the doctor. This he peremptorily refused to do. I waited a while longer, my limb in the mean time growing more and more painful. Again I requested Stahle to go for the doctor, or I should be obliged to send some one. At this he put on his hat and coat, and went out. After a prolonged absence he returned, not with a doctor, but a bottle of leeches, which he said 'had been ordered,' and set down the bottle containing them on a table at the further end of the room.
"It had become by that time quite difficult for me to step, as the needle had penetrated the sole of my foot; but, by the help of chairs, I pushed myself along until I reached the bottle.
"I am not given to faintings or womanish fears, but from my childhood I have had a shuddering horror of any thing like a snake; so unconquerable was this aversion, that I was forced to date it back prior to my birth.
"Stahle was aware of this weakness, and as, with a strong effort at self-command, I took up the bottle and then set it down again in a paroxysm of terror at the squirming inmates, he laughed derisively. That laugh nerved me with new strength. I uncorked the bottle, holding its mouth close to my foot, that the leeches might fasten on it, without my touching them with my fingers.
"As the first one greedily struck at my foot, I fainted. The effort at self-control in my nervous, excited state, was too much for me.
"When I recovered, the broken bottle lay upon the floor, the leeches had disappeared, save the one which had fastened upon my foot, and Stahle had gone to bed.
"Not long after this, unable to go out myself, I sent my little Arthur of a necessary errand. He had attended to it successfully, and was returning, when a gig, furiously driven by two young men, turned rapidly a street-corner, ran against and prostrated him. Arthur was a very spirited little fellow, and, beside, had much of the Spartan in his temperament. A policeman who saw the transaction, stepped up and raised him upon his feet, the brave child stoutly maintaining that he was 'not much hurt.' With all this bravery, Arthur was also shy and sensitive, and the gathering crowd and the immediate proximity of the policeman annoyed and mortified him. The policeman, however, true to his duty, would not leave him, and Arthur, whose love to me no thought of self could ever obliterate, gave him the number of Stahle's place of business instead of our residence, lest I should be distressed or frightened in my invalid state by their sudden appearance.