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honor of a knight, I could have sworn that it was thegritting of this vagabond’s teeth.”
    Hereupon the dwarf laughed (the king was too confirmed a joker to objectto any one’s laughing), and displayed a set of large, powerful, and veryrepulsive teeth. Moreover, he avowed his perfect willingness to swallowas much wine as desired. The monarch was pacified; and having drainedanother bumper with no very perceptible ill effect, Hop-Frog entered atonce, and with spirit, into the plans for the masquerade.
    â€œI cannot tell what was the association of idea,” observed he, verytranquilly, and as if he had never tasted wine in his life, “but just after your majesty, had struck the girl and thrown the wine in herface — just after your majesty had done this, and while the parrot wasmaking that odd noise outside the window, there came into my mind acapital diversion — one of my own country frolics — often enactedamong us, at our masquerades: but here it will be new altogether.Unfortunately, however, it requires a company of eight persons and-”
    â€œHere we are! ” cried the king, laughing at his acute discovery of thecoincidence; “eight to a fraction — I and my seven ministers. Come! whatis the diversion?”
    â€œWe call it,” replied the cripple, “the Eight Chained Ourang-Outangs,and it really is excellent sport if well enacted.”
    â€œ We will enact it,” remarked the king, drawing himself up, and loweringhis eyelids.
    â€œThe beauty of the game,” continued Hop-Frog, “lies in the fright itoccasions among the women.”
    â€œCapital!” roared in chorus the monarch and his ministry.
    â€œI will equip you as ourang-outangs,” proceeded the dwarf; “leave allthat to me. The resemblance shall be so striking, that the company ofmasqueraders will take you for real beasts — and of course, they will beas much terrified as astonished.”
    â€œOh, this is exquisite!” exclaimed the king. “Hop-Frog! I will make aman of you.”
    â€œThe chains are for the purpose of increasing the confusion by theirjangling. You are supposed to have escaped, en masse , from your keepers.Your majesty cannot conceive the effect produced, at a masquerade, byeight chained ourang-outangs, imagined to be real ones by most of thecompany; and rushing in with savage cries, among the crowd of delicatelyand gorgeously habited men and women. The contrast is inimitable!”
    â€œIt must be,” said the king: and the council arose hurriedly (as it wasgrowing late), to put in execution the scheme of Hop-Frog.
    His mode of equipping the party as ourang-outangs was very simple, buteffective enough for his purposes. The animals in question had, at theepoch of my story, very rarely been seen in any part of the civilizedworld; and as the imitations made by the dwarf were sufficientlybeast-like and more than sufficiently hideous, their truthfulness tonature was thus thought to be secured.
    The king and his ministers were first encased in tight-fitting stockinetshirts and drawers. They were then saturated with tar. At this stageof the process, some one of the party suggested feathers; but thesuggestion was at once overruled by the dwarf, who soon convinced theeight, by ocular demonstration, that the hair of such a brute as theourang-outang was much more efficiently represented by flax . A thickcoating of the latter was accordingly plastered upon the coating of tar.A long chain was now procured. First, it was passed about the waist ofthe king, and tied , then about another of the party, and also tied;then about all successively, in the same manner. When this chainingarrangement was complete, and the party stood as far apart from eachother as possible, they formed a circle; and to make all things appearnatural, Hop-Frog passed the residue of the chain in two diameters,at right angles, across the circle, after the fashion adopted, at thepresent