Come up when you finish." A steep stair-way that was like a ladder led to the loft.

Zara ascended this with agile fleetness, and the late astrologer was left alone at his very unmagician-like work of scraping the pot with a wooden spoon.

Once or twice, as the fancy crossed him of the contrast between Achmet, the Astrologer reading the stars, and Pietro the tramp scraping the bones of the stolen hare, he laughed grimly to himself.
"And the world is made up of just such contrasts," he thought, "and Pietro at his homely breakfast is more to be dreaded than Achmet casting the horoscope.

Ah! Sir Jasper Kingsland, it is a very fine thing to be a baronet with fifteen thousand pounds a year, a noble ancestral seat, a wife you love, and a son you adore.

And yet Pietro, the vagabond tramp--the sunburned gypsy, with stolen hares to eat, and rags to wear, and a hut to lodge in--would not exchange places with you this bright March day.