The short, troubled life of a drug-dealing Harlem midget came to a violent end yesterday when he was gunned down while guzzling beer and shooting dice outside a housing project.

Cops found a huge .380-caliber pistol in the waistband of little person Joshua Agard, 18, along with 15 vials of crack that he was peddling while hanging out in a courtyard with pal Manuel Zabater, who was also killed in the attack.

“He was just so big. So [I thought], how much could he get into?” said distraught neighbor Debra Daniels, 61. “He was a good person. I loved him.”

Though Agard was just 3 feet tall, he had a police record a mile long. So far this year, he had been busted twice, once on assault charges for throwing a bottle at a man’s head and once for trespassing when he was caught inside 425 E. 105th St. He also had two other arrests, cops said.

The final, fatal trouble for Agard came at about 4:30 a.m. yesterday while he and Zabater, beers in hand, were in the courtyard of the East River Houses project on East 105th Street.

According to cops, three or four black males approached and, without saying a word, blasted Agard several times.

Witnesses told The Post that the project grounds were clear of the usual cast of thugs at the time of the shooting, indicating that many knew the hit would be going down.

As rounds tore through the tiny target’s head and torso, Zabater committed an act of bravery when he rushed to his friend’s side and tried to pull him to cover, witnesses said. That’s when Zabater – who was on parole for drugs – was hit twice in the torso.

The gunmen fled and were still at large yesterday. Both victims were taken to local hospitals, where they died.

The bloody end for Agard came after a life in which he struggled to overcome the deaths of his parents, and his size, which sometimes made him the object of mockery.

“When people would taunt him, he would say, ‘I’m a midget, I don’t want to be called a dwarf,’ ” said one pal. “He did everything normal. He played ball, everything. Everybody knew him. He’s a loving person.”

Things weren’t always so bad for Agard. When he was 9 years old he appeared in a performance of “A Christmas Carol” put on by Harlem’s The Play’s The Thing Theatre Company. Fittingly, he played Tiny Tim.

john.doyle@nypost.com