"THE LITTLE FELLOW MUSED OFT AND LONG THEREON"
"It was not until he had been in this cavernous prison for five weeks that he noticed a most unique thing about it. Night and day it was always brilliantly lighted! On the Monday night of the fifth week this singular fact flashed upon the boy's mind. How was it? Whence could the light come? It was not sunlight, because that would not shine by night. What, then, was the secret of the light in the cave? The little fellow mused oft and long thereon, and finally he reached a conclusion, which, like all his conclusions, was a wise one.
"'This is worth investigating. I will investigate,' he cried. 'Meditation is good in its way, but if a thing is past mental comprehension, then investigation of an active sort is in order. In the first place, the light does not come from above; it streams in through that chink in the rock off to the left. I will slide through that chink and see what is to be seen.'
"IT NEARLY BLINDED HIM"
"In an instant he had done so, and—there lay his fortune. Lying upon the soft earth floor of the adjoining cave was a diamond, dazzling in its lustre, and large as a hen's egg. So brilliant was it that all about it was lighted up as though by electricity. In a second Fritz pounced upon it and held it aloft. It nearly blinded him, but he held on to it like grim death. It was his, and only his. His fortune was made.
"Three weeks later the waters subsided, and Fritz went forth into the world with his diamond."
"But," said I, "a diamond like that would be very hard to sell, and people might not understand how it had come into the possession of a small boy who had always been poor."