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Show THE VIRY WEE-E3T MA?J. A lv:irf W I in V.oul.l IIiito Krn a Bo, j uuxt lliifl lie I.WihI To-Uajr. I p!'!t" is supposed to have benn the smallest man who ever lived. He was borne I y :i peasant viini:iu in Lorraine just l) years ai;o. and was called Uclio liccatiiu the first few years of his life he could ailieiilato only "b-b." The day of his liirtli li'-be was smaller than his mother's hand. Ten days afterward lie was taken to the village cure, to be baptized, in his mother's wooden shoo, because he was too tired to be carried safely iu her riiH. During tho next six months the fame uoodeu shoe served as Lie he's crib. WIiimi Hebe was about seven years old Kins Stanislaus I.e.scyuski of Poland, Po-land, who was theu living at Lorraine, heard what a wonderful little feilow be was and ordered the child's father to brim; him to court, lie bo. Sr.. carried car-ried his son to the royal palace in a rmall basket. Stanislaus said at once that Hebe must become his court dwarf. Hebe's father was induced to accede to this proposal with a good bit of royal l'olish gold, and Hebe was made a regular follower of the King's com t. At the time of his introduction to court life Helm was just twenty inches tall aud weighed eighty pounds. He never grew larger. He had a sweet little voice, a good ear for music and uimblo legs. Ho could dance and sing with tho best of the King's courtiers. He was useful as a table ornament at all the King's great banquets. His most famous appearance ap-pearance in this rather peculiar role took place at a dinner which Stanislaus Stanis-laus gave to tho Ambassador of a great power in 178). iu the middle of the taole was an immense sugar castle. Shortly before the guests rose to leave, the door of the castle opened aud a knight iu full armor stepped out with a drawn sword iu his right hand. All the guests thought the knight must be some wonderful automaton which the King had obtained from the skilled mechanics across tho Rhine. He wasn't, however. He was none other than little Hebe. He walked around the table, shook his sword in tho face of every guest, saluted tho King and then turned back to the castle entrance, en-trance, where he assumed the position of a sentry. At a signal from the King every ono at the table began to bombard him with small sugar balls. Hebe hurried at once into the castle, locked the door motiuted the tower and pretended to return the lire by setting off a lot of perfumed explosives. In 1758 the Empress Catharine, of lliysia, sent an emissary nfter him to the court of the Polish King. Late one evening when the royal palace was almost deserted, Catharine's emissary emis-sary snapped Hebe up and stuffed him into the pocket of his great coat. Bebo screamed so lustily that ho revealed the plot to the guard at the door. The emissary was arrested and Hebe was rescued. Not loug afterward Bcbe accompanied accom-panied Stanislaus to the court of Louis XV. iu Versailles, where he again narrowly nar-rowly escaped abduction. A lady of tho French court had been holding hiiu iu her lap between tho course of a state dinner. Suddenly sho rose to leave the room. Her first step was accompanied ac-companied by a shrill cry from tho folds of her gown. "Hour Majesty, Your Majest3, this lady has stuck me in her pocket and is running away with me." The voice was Rebe's. Ho was immediately im-mediately dragged from the court lady's pocket aud placed under the guard of two pases, who were instructed in-structed by the Kiug Stanislaus to watch him day and night. The perils through which he had passed and the strict surveillauce to which he was now subjected depressed Be bo's spirits aud demoralized his acrvous system. He becamo melancholy, melan-choly, morose, rouud-shouldered aud haggard.. The King thought he needed a companion com-panion to cheer him up. and tho ref-j'tee ref-j'tee married bim. with great pomp ami ceremony, to Therese Sonvray, a dwarf of about his own age and slightly slight-ly greater stal tire. That was tho last drop in Bebc's cup. Two weeks after his marriage he lost his mind. Ho ceased to talk entirely, ate little, and spent most of his time iu his crib. His honeymoon was hardly up when ho died, ut" tho ago of 21. His wife, Therese. survived him forty-two years. |