shrunken, trembling old man.

"And I will smash every last bird in these rooms," said Green. "And I will open the chest that lies behind that pile of furs and take out of it your most precious treasure, the bird you have not even shown to the Emperor for fear he would get jealous and demand it as a gift from you, the bird you take out at rare intervals and over which you gloat all night."

"My wife told you!" gasped the Duke. "Oh, what an _izzot_ she is!"

"Granted," said Green. "She babbled to me many secrets, being a featherbrained, idle, silly, stupid female, a fit consort for you. So I know where the unique _exurotr_ statuette made by Izan Yushwa of Metzva Moosh is hidden, the glass bird that cost the whole dukedom a great tax and brought many bitter tears and hardships from your subjects. I will have no compunction about destroying it even if it is the only one ever made and if Izan Yushwa is now dead so that it can never be replaced."

The Duke's eyes bulged in horror.

"No, no!" he said in a quavering voice. "That would be unthinkable, blasphemous, sacrilegious! Have you no sense of beauty, degenerate slave that you are, that you would smash forever that most beautiful of all things made by the hands of man?"

"I would."

The Duke's mouth drew down at the corners; suddenly, he was weeping. Green was embarrassed, for he knew how great must be the emotion that could make this man, educated in a hard school, break down before an enemy. And he reflected upon what a strange thing a human being was. Here was a man who would literally allow his throat to be cut before he would display cowardice by bargaining for it. But to have his precious collection of glass birds threatened...! Green shrugged. Why try to understand it? The only thing to do was to use whatever came his way.

"Very well, if you wish to save them you must do this." And he detailed exactly the Duke's moves and orders for the next ten minutes. He thereupon made him swear by the most holy oaths and upon his family name and by the honor of the founder of his family that he would not betray Green.

"To make sure," added the Earthman, "I shall take the _exurotr_ with me. Once I know your word is good I'll take steps to see that it is returned undamaged to you."

"Can I depend on that?" breathed the Duke hoarsely, rolling his big 

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