While they were thus
      situated, the dwarf, who had followed noiselessly at their heels, inciting
      them to keep up the commotion, took hold of their own chain at the
      intersection of the two portions which crossed the circle diametrically
      and at right angles. Here, with the rapidity of thought, he inserted the
      hook from which the chandelier had been wont to depend; and, in an
      instant, by some unseen agency, the chandelier-chain was drawn so far
      upward as to take the hook out of reach, and, as an inevitable
      consequence, to drag the ourang-outangs together in close connection, and
      face to face. The masqueraders, by this time, had recovered, in some measure, from their
      alarm; and, beginning to regard the whole matter as a well-contrived
      pleasantry, set up a loud shout of laughter at the predicament of the
      apes. “Leave them to me!” now screamed Hop-Frog, his shrill voice making itself
      easily heard through all the din. “Leave them to me. I fancy I know them. If I can only get a good look at them, I can soon tell who they are.”


      Here, scrambling over the heads of the crowd, he managed to get to the
      wall; when, seizing a flambeau from one of the Caryatides, he returned,
      as he went, to the centre of the room—leaped, with the agility of a
      monkey, upon the kings head, and thence clambered a few feet up the
      chain; holding down the torch to examine the group of ourang-outangs, and
      still screaming: “I shall soon find out who they are!”


      And now, while the whole assembly (the apes included) were convulsed with
      laughter, the jester suddenly uttered a shrill whistle; when the chain
      flew violently up for about thirty feet—dragging with it the
      dismayed and struggling ourang-outangs, and leaving them suspended in
      mid-air between the sky-light and the floor. Hop-Frog, clinging to the
      chain as it rose, still maintained his relative position in respect to the
      eight maskers, and still (as if nothing were the matter) continued to
      thrust his torch down toward them, as though endeavoring to discover who
      they were. So thoroughly astonished was the whole company at this ascent, that a dead
      silence, of about a minute’s duration, ensued. It was broken by just such
      a low, harsh, grating sound, as had before attracted the attention of the
      king and his councillors when the former threw the wine in the face of
      Trippetta. But, on the present occasion, there could be no question as to
      whence the sound issued. It came from the fang-like teeth of the
      dwarf, who ground them and gnashed them as he foamed at the mouth, and
      glared, with an expression of maniacal rage, into the upturned
      countenances of the king and his seven companions. “Ah, ha!” said at length the infuriated jester. “Ah, ha! I begin to see
      who these people are now!” Here, pretending to scrutinize the king more
      closely, he held the flambeau to the flaxen coat which enveloped him, and
      which instantly burst into a sheet of vivid flame. In less than half a
      minute the whole eight ourang-outangs were blazing fiercely, amid the
      shrieks of the multitude who gazed at them from below, horror-stricken,
      and without the power to render them the slightest assistance. At length the flames, suddenly increasing in virulence, forced the jester
      to climb higher up the chain, to be out of their reach; and, as he made
      this movement, the crowd again sank, for a brief instant, into silence. The dwarf seized his opportunity, and once more spoke:

      “I now see distinctly,” he said, “what manner of people these maskers are. They are a great king and his seven privy-councillors,—a king who
      does not scruple to strike a defenceless girl and his seven councillors
      who abet him in the outrage. As for myself, I am simply Hop-Frog, the
      jester—and this is my last jest.”


      Owing to the high combustibility of both the flax and the tar to which it
      adhered, the dwarf had scarcely made an end of his brief speech before the
      work of vengeance was complete. The eight corpses swung in their chains, a
      fetid, blackened, hideous, and indistinguishable mass. The cripple hurled
      his torch at them, clambered leisurely to the ceiling, and disappeared
      through the sky-light. It is supposed that Trippetta, stationed on the roof of the saloon, had
      been the accomplice of her friend in his fiery revenge, and that,
      together, they effected their escape to their own country; for neither was
      seen again. THE MAN OF THE CROWD. Ce grand malheur, de ne pouvoir être seul.—_La Bruyère_. It was well said of a certain German book that “_er lasst sich nicht
      lesen_”—it does not permit itself to be read. There are some
      secrets which do not permit themselves to be told. Men die nightly in
      their beds, wringing the hands of ghostly confessors and looking them
      piteously in the eyes—die with despair of heart and convulsion of
      throat, on account of the hideousness of mysteries which will not suffer
      themselves to be revealed. Now and then, alas, the conscience of man takes
      up a burthen so heavy in horror that it can be thrown down only into the
      grave. And thus the essence of all crime is undivulged. Not long ago, about the closing in of an evening in autumn, I sat at the
      large bow window of the D—— Coffee-House in London. For some
      months I had been ill in health, but was now convalescent, and, with
      returning strength, found myself in one of those happy moods which are so
      precisely the converse of _ennui_—moods of the keenest
      appetency, when the film from the mental vision departs—the
      αχλυξ η πριυ
      επῆευ—and the intellect, electrified,
      surpasses as greatly its every-day condition, as does the vivid yet
      candid reason of Leibnitz, the mad and flimsy rhetoric of Gorgias. Merely
      to breathe was enjoyment; and I derived positive pleasure even from many
      of the legitimate sources of pain. I felt a calm but inquisitive interest
      in every thing. With a cigar in my mouth and a newspaper in my lap, I had
      been amusing myself for the greater part of the afternoon, now in poring
      over advertisements, now in observing the promiscuous company in the
      room, and now in peering through the smoky panes into the street. This latter is one of the principal thoroughfares of the city, and had
      been very much crowded during the whole day. But, as the darkness came on,
      the throng momently increased; and, by the time the lamps were well
      lighted, two dense and continuous tides of population were rushing past
      the door.