So up he stepped and took the diamond out of the statue’s hand.
Crash!—and all was darkness, darker than the darkest midnight; for, as quick as a wink, the black statue let the crystal globe of light fall from its right hand upon the stone floor, where it broke into ten thousand pieces.
And now the rich brother might wander up and wander down, but wander as he chose he could never find his way out of that place again, for the darkness shut him in like a blanket.
So, after all, mercy and temperance were better in the long run than greed and covetousness, in spite of what the great lord and the rich merchant and the poor ploughman had said.
Maybe I have got this story twisted awry in the telling; all the same, Tommy Pfouce says that it is a true-enough story, if you put on your spectacles and look at it from the right side.
Five O’clock·
Pussy-Cat, Pussy-Cat what do you dream,