Immediately after Quasimoto's funeral, the monsignor De Notre Dame put an ad in the local paper for a new bell-ringer.

Finding a new bell-ringer was always difficult; it was a Horrible job and only rarely did people leave deformed children on the doorstep that could be groomed for the job.

After a week or so of nervous waiting, the monsignor got a reply to the

ad and hastily set up an interview. To his shock, the applicant was a

dwarf that had no arms.

"How," demanded the monsignor, "are you supposed to ring the bells?"

"Easy!" said the dwarf. "Just take me up to the belltower and I'll show

you."

The monsignor took the dwarf up to the belltower and watched as the

dwarf went to the far side of the room and ran straight at the bell,

hitting it with his face.

"Dear Lord!" said the monsignor, "Are you all right?"

"Right as rain." replied the dwarf. "And I can do that seven days a

week, ten times a day."

The monsignor, impressed by the display, hired the dwarf on the spot.

Several times a day, the dwarf ran across the tower floor and smacked

face-first into the bells, setting them to ring and peal louder even

than Quasimoto had ever been able to.

As the months passed, the monsignor finally let go of his doubts as to

whether he had indeed hired the right man for the job.

One morning about a year after he started, the dwarf went out for a

drink after work with one of the cathedral guards. He drank a little

more than an armless dwarf should, and ended up passing out in a gutter

on his way home.

He awoke late and ran panicking to the cathedral, up the stairs and into

the tower. It was more exertion than he was used to, and the dizzy

breathlessness combined with a wicked hangover caused him to completely miss the first of the bells and run straight out a window, falling several stories to a messy demise in the streets below.

A crowd formed around his mangled corpse, attracting the attention of a passing constable.

"What's this then?" he asked a peasant woman.

"Looks to be a jumper, constable." she replied.

"Anyone know who he is?"

The peasant woman wrinkled her brow, stroked the wispy grey hair that stuck  out of her chin, and said:

"I don't know, but his face rings a bell."

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