Sample of some Gentleman's Autobiography. 23 



its nostrils, and its snore reverberated like a wind whistling through a 

 postern, along some narrow caverned vault in a haunted castle. The beast 

 was on its legs, but evidently under the influence of Morpheus. Stealing 

 out of its stall, I felt around me for it was too dark to see but every 

 object on which I laid my hand was novel, and alarming. The stable 

 seemed instinct with life, clothed in fantastic, frightful forms. At length, 

 I found, and laid down in, a long deep chest, half full of green baize and 

 blankets. Falling into a dose, I dreamt that I was floating on the heaving 

 billows of the ocean, and on being awakened by the boisterous entrance of 

 a man and woman with lights, I felt conscious that something was in 

 motion beneath me. It proved that I had got among the contents of a 

 travelling menagerie, and was reposing on a boa constrictor. 



The man and woman stared at me as though I had been a new 

 animal, and the former, after plucking me out of the chest and hurling 

 me under the legs of a dromedary, accused me of having broken into the 

 stable, with a view to purloin his young elephant, which I subsequently 

 found to be the gem of his collection. Of course I protested my inno- 

 cence, delivered my round unvarnished version of the accidental mode 

 in which I had entered, for the purpose of obtaining shelter for the night, 

 and triumphantly adduced as a proof of my ignorance as to what the stable 

 contained, the fact of my having inadvertently gone to bed with the boa. 

 The man grinned, but could not immediately be appeased, because bethought 

 from appearances some little violence had been done to the door. At length, 

 however, we became amicable, and he condescended to ask me if I could 

 drive with care, and make faces. I answered in the affirmative, and as he 

 was travelling my way, I agreed to succeed his late mountebank and 

 factotum, who, on the preceding day, had upset the caravan, and rather 

 damaged the beasts. All this time his companion stood silent ; she was 

 the most beautiful being I ever saw but more of her anon. 



The next morning, our caravan being repaired, my employer restored 

 the chief part of his collection to their customary berths. The young 

 elephant was very refractory, but at length submitted to go back to his 

 box, and the dromedary obediently knelt for his load. This consisted of a 

 cage of cockatoos; several monkies, at perfect liberty 5 a portable cook- 

 ing apparatus j a bed and bedding ; four chairs ; two big drums ; a gong ; the 

 materials of a stage and tent; three young badgers in a bag; and the lady. 

 My business was to lead the dromedary, and keep a sharp eye on the mon- 

 kies, my employer himself taking charge of the team that drew the caravan. 

 The next day, he procured me a mountebank's suit, painted my face, and 

 requested that I should consider my transformation permanent. Even 

 on the road I was to wear my motley, because we had come into a 

 quarter prolific of fairs, and he wished not only to travel through the 

 villages with eclat, but to be ready for exhibiting at a minute's notice, 

 extempore, as it were, wherever he could draw together a sufficient num- 

 ber of customers to pay him for halting. This arrangement exactly suited 

 my views, for I did not wish to be bothered by any acquaintance I might 

 meet, and altered and bedaubed as I was, my most intimate friend could 

 not have known me. I therefore entered heartily into the spirit of the 

 thing, and delighted my new connexions by the novelty of my grimaces. 

 No masquerade could have afforded me more amusement, but in a few 

 days I began to mope, being, for the first time in my life, a stricken 

 deer. 



