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[page 455:]
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HOP-FROG.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I NEVER knew any one
so keenly alive
to a joke as
the king was. He seemed to live only for joking. To tell a good story
of
the joke kind, and to tell it well, was the surest road to his favor.
Thus
it happened that his seven ministers were all noted for their
accomplishments
as jokers. They all took after the king, too, in being large,
corpulent,
oily men, as well as inimitable jokers. Whether people grow fat by
joking,
or whether there is something in fat itself which predisposes to a
joke,
I have never been quite able to determine; but certain it is that a
lean
joker is a rara avis in terris.
About the refinements, or, as he called them, the
"ghosts" of wit,
the
king troubled himself very little. He had an especial admiration for breadth
in a jest, and would often put up with length, for the sake of
it.
Over-niceties
wearied him. He would have preferred Rabelais's "Gargantua," to the
"Zadig"
of Voltaire: and, upon the whole, practical jokes suited his taste far
better than verbal ones.
At the date of my narrative, professing jesters had
not
altogether
gone
out of fashion at court. Several of the great continental "powers"
still
retained their "fools," who wore motley, with caps and bells, and who
were
expected to be always ready with sharp witticisms, at a moment's
notice,
in consideration of the crumbs that fell from the royal table.
Our king, as a matter of course, retained
his "fool."
The fact is,
he required something in the way of folly — if only to
counterbalance [page 456:] the
heavy wisdom of the seven wise men who were his ministers — not to
mention
himself.
His fool, or professional jester, was not only
a fool,
however. His
value was trebled in the eyes of the king, by the fact of his being
also
a dwarf and a cripple. Dwarfs were as common at court, in those days,
as
fools; and many monarchs would have found it difficult to get through
their
days (days are rather longer at court than elsewhere) without both a
jester
to laugh with, and a dwarf to laugh at. But, as I have
already
observed,
your jesters, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, are fat, round
and
unwieldy — so that it was no small source of self-gratulation with our
king that, in Hop-Frog (this was the fool's name,) he possessed a
triplicate
treasure in one person.
I believe the name "Hop-Frog" was not that
given to
the
dwarf by his
sponsors at baptism, but it was conferred upon him, by general consent
of the several ministers, on account of his inability to walk as other
men do. In fact, Hop-Frog could only get along by a sort of
interjectional
gait — something between a leap and a wriggle — a movement that
afforded
illimitable amusement, and of course consolation, to the king, for
(notwithstanding
the protuberance of his stomach and a constitutional swelling of the
head)
the king, by his whole court, was accounted a capital figure.
But although Hop-Frog, through the distortion of his
legs, could
move
only with great pain and difficulty along a road or floor, the
prodigious
muscular power which nature seemed to have bestowed upon his arms, by
way
of compensation for deficiency in the lower limbs, enabled him to
perform
many feats of wonderful dexterity, where trees or ropes were in
question,
or anything else to climb. At such exercises he certainly much more
resembled
a squirrel, or a small monkey, than a frog.
I am not able to say, with precision, from what
country
Hop-Frog
originally
came. It was from some barbarous region, however, that no person ever
heard
of — a vast distance from the court of our king. Hop-Frog, and a young
girl very little less dwarfish than himself (although of exquisite
proportions,
and a marvellous dancer,) had been forcibly carried off from their
respective
homes in adjoining provinces, and sent as presents to the king, by one
of his ever-victorious generals. [page 457:]
Under these circumstances, it is not to be wondered
at
that a close
intimacy arose between the two little captives. Indeed, they soon
became
sworn friends. Hop-Frog, who, although he made a great deal of sport,
was
by no means popular, had it not in his power to render Trippetta many
services;
but she, on account of her grace and exquisite beauty (although
a
dwarf,)
was universally admired and petted: so she possessed much influence;
and
never failed to use it, whenever she could, for the benefit of
Hop-Frog.
On some grand state occasion — I forgot what — the
king determined
to have a masquerade, and whenever a masquerade or anything of that
kind,
occurred at our court, then the talents both of Hop-Frog and Trippetta
were sure to be called in play. Hop-Frog, in especial, was so
inventive
in the way of getting up pageants, suggesting novel characters, and
arranging
costume, for masked balls, that nothing could be done, it seems,
without
his assistance.
The night appointed for the fête had
arrived. A gorgeous
hall had
been
fitted up, under Trippetta's eye, with every kind of device which could
possibly give éclât to a masquerade. The whole
court was in a fever of
expectation. As for costumes and characters, it might well be supposed
that everybody had come to a decision on such points. Many had made up
their minds (as to what rôles they should assume) a week,
or even a
month,
in advance; and, in fact, there was not a particle of indecision
anywhere — except in the case of the king and his seven minsters. Why they
hesitated
I never could tell, unless they did it by way of a joke. More probably,
they found it difficult, on account of being so fat, to make up their
minds.
At all events, time flew; and, as a last resource, they sent for
Trippetta
and Hop-Frog.
When the two little friends obeyed the summons of
the
king, they
found
him sitting at his wine with the seven members of his cabinet council;
but the monarch appeared to be in a very ill humor. He knew that
Hop-Frog
was not fond of wine; for it excited the poor cripple almost to
madness;
and madness is no comfortable feeling. But the king loved his practical
jokes, and took pleasure in forcing Hop-Frog to drink and (as the king
called it) "to be merry." [page 458:]
"Come here, Hop-Frog," said he, as the jester and
his
friend entered
the room: "swallow this bumper to the health of your absent friends
[here
Hop-Frog sighed,] and then let us have the benefit of your invention.
We
want characters — characters, man — something novel — out of
the
way.
We are wearied with this everlasting sameness. Come, drink! the wine
will
brighten your wits."
Hop-Frog endeavored, as usual, to get up a jest in
reply
to these
advances
from the king; but the effort was too much. It happened to be the poor
dwarf's birthday, and the command to drink to his "absent friends"
forced
the tears to his eyes. Many large, bitter drops fell into the goblet as
he took it, humbly, from the hand of the tyrant.
"Ah! ha! ha! ha!" roared the latter, as the dwarf
reluctantly drained
the
beaker. "See what a glass of good wine can do! Why, your eyes are
shining
already!"
Poor fellow! his large eyes gleamed, rather
than
shone;
for the
effect
of wine on his excitable brain was not more powerful than
instantaneous.
He placed the goblet nervously on the table, and looked round upon the
company with a half-insane stare. They all seemed highly amused at
the
success of the king's "joke."
"And now to business," said the prime minister, a very
fat man.
"Yes," said the King; "Come, Hop-Frog, lend us your
assistance.
Characters, my
fine fellow; we stand in need of characters — all of us — ha! ha!
ha!"
and as this was seriously meant for a joke, his laugh was chorused by
the
seven.
"[[sic]] Hop-Frog also laughed, although
feebly and somewhat
vacantly.
"Come, come," said the king, impatiently, "have you
nothing to
suggest?"
"I am endeavoring to think of something novel,"
replied
the dwarf,
abstractedly,
for he was quite bewildered by the wine.
"Endeavoring!" cried the tyrant, fiercely; "what do
you
mean by that?
Ah, I perceive. You are sulky, and want more wine. Here, drink this!"
and
he poured out another goblet full and offered it to the cripple, who
merely
gazed at it, gasping for breath. [page 459:]
"Drink, I say!" shouted the monster, "or by the
fiends —"
The dwarf hesitated. The king grew purple with rage.
The
courtiers
smirked.
Trippetta, pale as a corpse, advanced to the monarch's seat, and,
falling
on her knees before him, implored him to spare her friend.
The tyrant regarded her, for some moments, in
evident
wonder at her
audacity. He seemed quite at a loss what to do or say — how most
becomingly
to express his indignation. At last, without uttering a syllable, he
pushed
her violently from him, and threw the contents of the brimming goblet
in
her face.
The poor girl got up as best she could, and, not
daring
even to
sigh,
resumed her position at the foot of the table.
There was a dead silence for about half a minute,
during
which the
falling
of a leaf, or of a feather, might have been heard. It was interrupted
by
a low, but harsh and protracted grating sound which seemed to
come at
once
from every corner of the room.
"What — what — what are you making that
noise
for?"
demanded the
king,
turning furiously to the dwarf.
The latter seemed to have recovered, in great
measure,
from his
intoxication,
and looking fixedly but quietly into the tyrant's face, merely
ejaculated:
"I — I? How could it have been me?"
"The sound appeared to come from without," observed
one
of the
courtiers.
"I fancy it was the parrot at the window, whetting his bill upon his
cage-wires."
"True," replied the monarch, as if much relieved by
the
suggestion;
"but, on the honor of a knight, I could have sworn that it was the
gritting
of this vagabond's teeth."
Hereupon the dwarf laughed (the king was too
confirmed a
joker to
object
to any one's laughing), and displayed a set of large, powerful, and
very
repulsive teeth. Moreover, he avowed his perfect willingness to swallow
as much wine as desired. The monarch was pacified; and having drained
another
bumper with no very perceptible ill effect, Hop-Frog entered at once,
and
with spirit, into the plans for the masquerade.
"I cannot tell what was the association of idea,"
observed he, very
tranquilly, and as if he had never tasted wine in his life, "but [page
460:] just
after
your majesty had struck the girl and thrown the wine in her face — just
after your majesty had done this, and while the parrot was making
that
odd noise outside the window, there came into my mind a capital
diversion — one of my own country frolics — often enacted among us, at
our
masquerades:
but here it will be new altogether. Unfortunately, however, it requires
a company of eight persons, and —"
"Here we are!" cried the king, laughing at
his acute
discovery of
the
coincidence; "eight to a fraction — I and my seven ministers. Come!
what
is the diversion?"
"We call it," replied the cripple, "the Eight
Chained
Ourang-Outangs,
and it really is excellent sport if well enacted."
"We will enact it," remarked the king,
drawing himself
up, and
lowering
his eyelids.
"The beauty of the game," continued Hop-Frog, "lies
in
the fright it
occasions among the women."
"Capital!" roared in chorus the monarch and his
ministry.
"I will equip you as ourang-outangs,"
proceeded the
dwarf; "leave
all
that to me. The resemblance shall be so striking, that the company of
masqueraders
will take you for real beasts — and of course, they will be as much
terrified
as astonished."
"O, this is exquisite!" exclaimed the king.
"Hop-Frog!
I will make
a man of you."
"The chains are for the purpose of increasing the
confusion by their
jangling. You are supposed to have escaped, en masse, from your
keepers.
Your majesty cannot conceive the effect produced, at a
masquerade, by
eight
chained ourang-outangs, imagined to be real ones by most of the
company;
and rushing in with savage cries, among the crowd of delicately and
gorgeously
habited men and women. The contrast is inimitable."
"It must be," said the king: and the council
arose
hurriedly (as it
was growing late), to put in execution the scheme of Hop-Frog.
His mode of equipping the party as ourang-outangs
was
very simple,
but
effective enough for his purposes. The animals in question had, at the
epoch of my story, very rarely been seen in any part of the civilized
world;
and as the imitations made by the dwarf were sufficiently beast-like
and
more than sufficiently [page 461:] hideous, their
truthfulness to nature was thus
thought
to be secured.
The king and his ministers were first encased in
tight-fitting
stockinet
shirts and drawers. They were then saturated with tar. At this stage of
the process, some one of the party suggested feathers; but the
suggestion
was at once overruled by the dwarf, who soon convinced the eight, by
ocular
demonstration, that the hair of such a brute as the ourang-outang was
much
more efficiently represented by flax. A thick coating of the
latter was
accordingly plastered upon the coating of tar. A long chain was now
procured.
First, it was passed about the waist of the king, and tied;
then about
another of the party, and also tied; then about all successively, in
the
same manner. When this chaining arrangement was complete, and the party
stood as far apart from each other as possible, they formed a circle;
and
to make all things appear natural, Hop-Frog passed the residue of the
chain,
in two diameters, at right angles, across the circle, after the fashion
adopted, at the present day, by those who capture Chimpanzees, or other
large apes, in Borneo.
The grand saloon in which the masquerade was to take
place, was a
circular
room, very lofty, and receiving the light of the sun only through a
single
window at top. At night (the season for which the apartment was
especially
designed,) it was illuminated principally by a large chandelier,
depending
by a chain from the centre of the sky-light, and lowered, or elevated,
by means of a counter-balance as usual; but (in order not to look
unsightly)
this latter passed outside the cupola and over the roof.
The arrangements of the room had been left to
Trippetta's
superintendence;
but, in some particulars, it seems, she had been guided by the calmer
judgment
of her friend the dwarf. At his suggestion it was that, on this
occasion,
the chandelier was removed. Its waxen drippings (which, in weather so
warm,
it was quite impossible to prevent,) would have been seriously
detrimental
to the rich dresses of the guests, who, on account of the crowded state
of the saloon, could not all be expected to keep from out its
centre —
that
is to say, from under the chandelier. Additional sconces were set in
various
parts of the hall, out of the way; and [page 462:] a
flambeau, emitting sweet odor,
was placed in the right hand of each of the Caryaides [[Caryatides]]
that
stood against the wall — some fifty or sixty altogether.
The eight ourang-outangs, taking Hop-Frog's advice,
waited patiently
until midnight (when the room was thoroughly filled with masqueraders)
before making their appearance. No sooner had the clock ceased
striking,
however, than they rushed, or rather rolled in, all together — for the
impediment of their chains caused most of the party to fall, and all
to
stumble as they entered.
The excitement among the masqueraders was
prodigious,
and filled the
heart of the king with glee. As had been anticipated, there were not a
few of the guests who supposed the ferocious-looking creatures to be
beasts
of some kind in reality, if not precisely ourang-outangs. Many
of the
women
swooned with affright; and had not the king taken the precaution to
exclude
all weapons from the saloon, his party might soon have expiated their
frolic
in their blood. As it was, a general rush was made for the doors; but
the
king had ordered them to be locked immediately upon his entrance; and,
at the dwarf's suggestion, the keys had been deposited with him.
While the tumult was at its height, and each
masquerader
attentive
only
to his own safety — (for, in fact, there was much real danger
from the
pressure
of the excited crowd,) — the chain by which the chandelier ordinarily
hung,
and which had been drawn up on its removal, might have been seen very
gradually
to descend, until its hooked extremity came within three feet of the
floor.
Soon after this, the king and his seven friends,
having
reeled about
the hall in all directions, found themselves, at length, in its centre,
and, of course, in immediate contact with the chain. While they were
thus
situated, the dwarf, who had followed closely 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, [page
463:] 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 Caryaides
[[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 towards them, as though endeavoring to discover who they were.
So thoroughly astonished were 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. [page 464:]
"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
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