In the morning it was seen that the Figure of the Lost Soul had
toppled from its cornice and lay now in a broken mass on the dust-heap
outside the verger's lodge.
"It is just as well," cooed the fat pigeons, after they had peered at the
matter for some minutes; "now we shall have a nice angel put up there.
Certainly they will put an angel there."
"After joy . . . sorrow," rang out the great bell.
THE PURPLE OF THE BALKAN KINGS
Luitpold Wolkenstein, financier and diplomat on a small, obtrusive, self-
important scale, sat in his favoured cafe in the world-wise Habsburg
capital, confronted with the _Neue Freie Presse_ and the cup of cream-
topped coffee and attendant glass of water that a sleek-headed piccolo
had just brought him. For years longer than a dog's lifetime
sleek-headed piccolos had placed the _Neue Freie Presse_ and a cup of
cream-topped coffee on his table; for years he had sat at the same spot,
under the dust-coated, stuffed eagle, that had once been a living,
soaring bird on the Styrian mountains, and was now made monstrous and
symbolical with a second head grafted on to its neck and a gilt crown
planted on either dusty skull.
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