“At the intrusion, Fiddles rose to a sitting posture and stared wonderingly. He was sober enough now, but his heavy sleep still showed about his eyes.
“The production of the key, my positive statement, backed by the women, and Fiddles’s wondering gaze, brought the gendarmes to a halt for a moment, but his previous arrest was against him, and so the boy was finally ordered to put on his clothes and accompany them to the lock-up.
“I got into the rest of my duds, and began waving the American flag and ordering out gunboats. I insisted that the cobbler had lied before in accusing Fiddles of shooting the rabbit, as was well known, and he would lie again. Fiddles was my friend, my servant—a youth of incorruptible character. It is true he had been intoxicated the night before, and that I had in consequence put him to bed, but that was entirely due to the effects of some very rare wine which he had drunk at a luncheon given in his honor and mine by our very dear friend the Baroness Morghenslitz, who had entertained us at her princely home. This, with the heat of the day, had been, etc., etc.
“The mention of the distinguished woman’s name caused another halt. Further consultation ensued, resulting in the decision that we all adjourn to the office of the Mayor. If, after hearing our alibi—one beyond dispute, and submitting our evidence (Exhibit A, the key, which they must admit exactly fitted the lock of Fiddles’s bedroom door), his Honor could still be made to believe the perjured testimony of the cobbler—Fiddles’s enemy, as had been abundantly proved in the previous rabbit case, when the same mendacious half-soler and heeler had informed on my friend—well and good; but if not, then, the resources of my Government would be set in motion for the young man’s release.
“The Mayor’s first words were: ‘Ah, you have come again, is it, Meinherr Marny; and it is the same young man, too, Herr Fuddles. Well, well, it is much trouble that you have.’ (I’d give it to you in German, old man, but you wouldn’t understand it—this to me in a sort of an aside.)
“Fiddles never moved a muscle of his face. You would have thought that he was the least interested man in the room. Only once did his features relax, and that was when the cobbler arrived with his head swathed in bandages. Then a grim smile flickered about the corners of his mouth, as if fate had at last overtaken his enemy.
“Of course, the Mayor dismissed the case. Gretchen’s tearful, pleading face, the landlady’s positive statement of helping put the dear young gentleman to bed; the key and the use I had made of it; the reluctant testimony of the officers, who had tried the knob and could not get in until I had turned the lock, together with the well-known animosity of the cobbler (and all because Fiddles had ridiculed his workmanship on a pair of shoes the boy had left with him to be half-soled), turned the tide in the lad’s favor and sent us all back to the inn rejoicing.
“Some weeks later Fiddles came into my room, locked the door, pulled down the shades, looked under the bed, in the closet and behind the curtains, and sat down in front of me. (I had to return to Munich the next day, and this would be our last night together.)
“You have been very good to me, Master,’ he said with a choke in his voice. ‘I love people who are good to me; I hate those who are not. I have been that way all my life—it would have been better for me if I hadn’t.’ Then he leaned forward and took my hand. ‘I want you to do something more for me; I want you to promise me you’ll take me home to America with you when you go. I’m tired dodging these people. I want to get somewhere where I can shoot and hunt and fish, and nobody can stop me. I snared that rabbit; been snaring them all summer; going to keep on snaring them after you’re gone. I love to hunt them—love the fun of it—born that way. And I’ve got something else to tell you’—here a triumphant smile flashed over his face—‘I smashed that cobbler!’
“‘You, Fiddles!’ I laughed. ‘Why, you were dead drunk, and I put you under the pump and—’