I had just strength enough left to catch the third paper and open it—­there was my own name:  “Simsen.”

Then I sank fainting to the floor.

When I came to myself again, Niels Daae stood beside me with an empty water bottle, the contents of which were dripping off my person and off the sofa upon which I was lying.  “Here, drink this,” he said in a soothing tone.  “It will make you feel better.”

I looked about me wildly, as I sipped at the glass of brandy which put new life into me once more.  “What has happened?” I asked weakly.

“Oh, nothing of importance,” answered Niels.  “You were just about to commit suicide by means of charcoal gas.  Those are mighty bad ventilators on your old stove there.  The wind must have blown them shut, unless you were fool enough to close them yourself before you went to bed.  If you had not opened the window, you would have already been too far along the path to Paradise to be called back by a glass of brandy.  Take another.”

“How did you get up here?” I asked, sitting upright on the sofa.

“Through the door in the usual simple manner,” answered Niels Daae.  “I was on watch last night in the hospital; but Mathiesen’s punch is heavy and my watching was more like sleeping, so I thought it better to come away in the early morning.  As I passed your barracks here, I saw you sitting in the window in your nightshirt and calling down to the night watchman that some one was murdering you.  I managed to wake up Jansen down below you, and got into the house through his window.  Do you usually sleep on the bare floor?”

“But where did the arms come from?” I asked, still half bewildered.

“Oh, the devil take those arms,” cried Niels.  “Just see if you can stand up all right now.  Oh, those arms there?  Why, those are the arms I cut off your skeletons.  Clever idea, wasn’t it?  You know how grumpy Soelling gets if anything interferes with his tutoring.  You see, I’d had the geese sent me, and I wanted you to all come with me to Mathiesen’s place.  I knew you were going to read the osteology of the arm, so I went up into Soelling’s room, opened it with his own keys and took the arms from his skeleton.  I did the same here while you were downstairs in the reading room.  Have you been stupid enough to take them down off their frames, and take away their tickets?  I had marked them so carefully, that each man should get his own again.”

I dressed hastily and went out with Niels into the fresh, cool morning air.  A few minutes later we separated, and I turned toward the street where Soelling lived.  Without heeding the protest of his old landlady, I entered the room where he still slept the sleep of the just.  The arm, still wrapped in newspaper, lay on his desk.  I took it up, put the mark piece in its place and hastened with all speed to the churchyard.