mutilating me, and I cannot defend myself! I am profoundly humiliated—reduced to envy the lot even of this wretched being!"

"Take his place!" said the angel, smiling.

And the insatiate personage became again what he had been before—a poor little stone-breaker. As in the past, he worked on the highways as long as day lasted, in all weathers, in all seasons, in rain, in the burning sunshine, and in snow. He was always half dead with hunger, three-quarters dead with fatigue. But that did not prevent his being perfectly contented with his lot.

"Perfectly contented with his lot."