AN ACCUMULATION OF HORRORS. 



221 



put your hand on a full-grown scaly scorpion. Nice sensation ! the animal twinino- round 

 your finger, or running up your sleeve! Denodment : cracking him under foot joy at 

 escaping a sting ! 



"You are enjoying your dinner, but have been for some time sensible of a strange, 

 titillating feeling about the region of your ankle; you look down at last, to find a 

 centipede on your sock, with his fifty hind legs you thank God not his fore-fifty! 



NAVAL OFFICERS AND SEAMEN, EIGHTEENTH CENTUKY. 



abutting on your shin. Tableaux: green-to-red light from the eyes of the many-legged 

 horror of yourself as you wait till he thinks proper to ' move on/ 



"To awake in the morning, and find a large, healthy-looking tarantula squatting on 

 your pillow, within ten inches of your nose, with his basilisk eyes fixed on yours, and 

 apparently saying : ' You're awake, are you ? I've been sitting here all the morning, 

 watching you/ 



!< You think, if you move, he'll bite you somewhere and if he does bite you, you'll 

 go mad, and dance ad libitum so you twist your mouth in the opposite direction, and 

 ejaculate ' Steward !' But the steward does not come; in fact, he is forward, seeing 

 after breakfast. Meanwhile, the gentleman on the pillow is moving his horizontal 

 mandibles in a most threatening manner ; and just as he moves for your nose, you tumble 



