"A sailor."

"What is his name?" said Gwynplaine, interrupting. "Tom-Jim-Jack," answered the hotel-keeper.

Then, in redescending the steps at the back of the Green Box, to enter the inn, Master Nicless let fall this profound reflection, so deep that it went altogether out of sight,

"What a pity that he should not be a lord. He would be a famous scoundrel."

Otherwise, though installed in the tavern, the group in the Green Box had in no way altered their manners of living, and held to their isolation. Excepting a few words exchanged now and then with the tavern-keeper, they mingled not with any inhabitants, either passengers or with those who were permanent in the inn; and contrived to live amongst themselves. Since they had been at Southwark, Gwynplaine had made it his habit, after the performance and the supper both of the family and the horses-when Ursus and Dea had gone to bed in their respective departments-to breathe a little the fresh air of the bowling-green, between eleven o'clock and midnight.

A certain vagrancy in our spirits impels us to nightly walks, and to sauntering under the stars. There is a mysterious expectation in youth. It is for this we like to go out in the night, without an object.

At this hour there was no one in the fair-ground, except a nodding drunkard, making staggering shadows in dark corners. The empty taverns were shut up, the lamps put out in the lower room of Tadcaster Inn, where, scarcely twinkling, in some angle a solitary candle lighted a last reveller. An indistinct glow gleamed through the window-shutter of the half-opened tavern, and Gwynplaine, pensive, content, and dreaming, happy in a haze of a divine joy, passed and repassed before the half-open door.

Of what was he thinking? Of Dea-of nothing-of everything— of depths.

He did not wander far from the Green Box, held, as by a thread, near to Dea. To take a few steps away from it was sufficient for him.

Then he returned, found all the Green Box asleep, and slept himse.

CHAPTER II.

CONTRARIES FRATERNISE IN HATE.

SUCCESS is not liked, especially by those whom it overthrows. is rare that the eaten adore the eaters.

It

with perfect

The Grinning Man had decidedly made a hit. The mountebanks around were indignant. A theatrical success is a siphon-it pumps the crowd and makes emptiness around it. The shop opposite was lost. The increased receipts in the Green Box made a corresponding decrease in the receipts of the surrounding shows. In short, the entertainments, popular up to that time, stood still. It was like a low watermark, showing in an inverse sense, but concordance, the increase here, the diminution there. All theatres know the effect of tides: they are high with one only on the condition of being low with another. The nests of foreigners who exhibited their talents and their tumult on the neighbouring platforms, seeing themselves ruined by the Grinning Man, were despairing, yet dazzled. All the grimacers, all the clowns, all the merryandrews envied Gwynplaine. How happy he must be with the snout of a wild beast! The buffoon mothers and dancers on the tight-rope, who had pretty children, looked at them with anger, and pointing out Gwynplaine, would say,-"What a pity you have not a face likethat!" Some beat their babes with fury at finding them beautiful. More than one, had she known how, would have fashioned her son's face in the Gwynplaine style. The head of an angel, which brought no money, was not worth that of a lucrative devil.

Gwynplaine was a bird which laid golden eggs! What a marvellous circumstance! This was the only cry in all the

caravans.

The mountebanks, enthusiastic and exasperated, looked at Gwynplaine and gnashed their teeth. The rage that admires is called. envy. Then they howled! They tried to disturb "Chaos Vanquished;" made a cabal, hissed, scolded, shouted! This gave a motive to Ursus to make field harangues to the populace, and for his friend Tom-Jim-Jack to use his fists in the re-establishment of order. These pugilistic marks of friendship brought him still more under the notice and regard of Ursus and Gwynplaine. It was at a distance, nevertheless, because the group in the Green Box sufficed to themselves, and held aloof from the rest of the world, and because Tom-Jim-Jack, this leader of the mob, seemed a sort of superb lackey, without a tie, without a friend; a smasher of windows, a

manager of men-appearing, disappearing-hail-fellow-well-met with everyone, and companion of none.

This raging envy against Gwynplaine did not decrease by opposition, nor by the friendly efforts of Tom-Jim-Jack. The outcries having miscarried, the mountebanks of Tarrenzeau field fell back on a petition. They addressed themselves to the authorities. This is the usual provision against a success that is irksome; we first try to stir up the crowd and then we petition the magistrate.

To the merryandrews were united the reverends. The Grinning Man had struck a blow at the preachers. The empty space was not only in the caravans, but in the churches. The churches of the five parishes in Southwark had no longer a congregation. Folks went out before the sermon to go to Gwynplaine. "Chaos Vanquished," the Green Box, the Grinning Man, all the abominations of Baal, deadened the eloquence of the pulpit. The voice crying in the desert, vox clamantis in deserto, was not content, and willingly called to aid the government. The clergy of the five parishes complained to the Bishop of London, who complained to her Majesty.

The complaint of the merryandrews was based on religion. They declared it to be insulted. They pointed out Gwynplaine as a sorcerer, and Ursus as an atheist. The reverend gentlemen invoked social order. Setting orthodoxy on one side, they rested on the cause and the fact that acts of parliament were violated. It was the cleverer course. Because it was in the time of Mr. Locke, who had been dead but six months-28th October, 1704-when scepticism, which Bolingbroke had imbibed from Voltaire, had begun. Wesley came later to restore the Bible, as Loyola had to restore the papacy.

After this fashion the Green Box was breached on two sides; by the merryandrews, in the name of the Pentateuch, and by chaplains in the name of police regulations, the reverend gentlemen holding for the commission of highways and the mountebanks for heaven. The Green Box was denounced by the priests as an incumbrance, and by the jugglers as sacrilegious.

Had they any pretext? Had any cause been given? Yes. What was the crime? This: they had a wolf. A dog was allowable; a wolf forbidden. The wolf in England is an outlaw. England admits the dog which barks, but not the dog which howls,-a shade of difference between the courtyard and the forest.

The rectors and vicars of the five parishes of Southwark recalled, in their petitions, numberless parliamentary and royal statutes putting the wolf beyond the protection of the law. They moved for something like the imprisonment of Gwynplaine and the execution of

The question was one of

the wolf, or at any rate for his expulsion. public interest. There was the risk for the passengers. And, to crown all, they appealed to the Faculty. They cited the opinion of the eighty London doctors, a learned body which dates from Henry VIII., who have a seal like the State, who elevate rich people to the dignity of being under their jurisdiction, who have the right to imprison those who infringe their law and contravene its ordinances, and who, amongst other useful regulations for the health of the citizens, have put beyond doubt this fact acquired by science: if a wolf sees a man first, the man becomes hoarse for life. Besides, he may be bitten.

Homo, then, was the pretext.

Ursus heard from the hotel-keeper these menaces. He was uneasy. He feared these two claws-the police and the justices. To be afraid of the magistracy,-it was enough to be afraid, it is not necessary to be guilty. Ursus had little desire for contact with sheriffs, provosts, bailiffs, and coroners. His desire to make their acquaintance amounted to nothing. He had as much curiosity to see the magistrates as the hare has to see the greyhound.

He began to regret that he had come to London. "Better' is the enemy of 'good,'" murmured he apart. "I thought the proverb was ill-considered. I was wrong. Stupid truths are true truths."

Against the coalition of powers-the merryandrews taking in hand the cause of religion, and the chaplains indignant in the name of medicine,—the poor Green Box suspected of sorcery in Gwynplaine, and hydrophobia in Homo, had but one thing in its favour-but one of great power in England-municipal inactivity. It is to the letting things take their course that Englishmen owe their liberty. Liberty in England behaves much as the sea that surrounds England. It is a tide. Little by little manners surmount the law. A frightful legislation is swallowed up by the force of custom. A ferocious code of laws is yet visible under the transparency of universal liberty. This is England.

The Grinning Man, "Chaos Vanquished," and Homo might have against them mountebanks, preachers, bishops, the House of Commons, the House of Lords, Her Majesty, London, and all England, and rest quiet, so long as Southwark permitted.

The Green Box was the favourite amusement of this suburb, and the local authorities seemed indifferent. In England, indifference is protection. So long as the sheriff of the county of Surrey, to the jurisdiction of which Southwark belongs, did not interfere, Ursus breathed freely, and Homo could sleep on his two wolfish cars.

So long as this hatred did not come to acts of violence, it increased success. The Green Box was none the worse. On the contrary; it got abroad in the public mind that it contained something mysterious. Hence the Grinning Man became more and more popular. The public follow with gusto the scent of anything contraband. To be suspected recommends. The people adopt by instinct that which the finger menaces. The thing which is denounced is like the savour of forbidden fruit; we are in a hurry to eat it. Besides applause, which irritates some one, especially if that some one is in authority, is sweet. To make, whilst passing a pleasant evening, an act of kindness to the oppressed, and of opposition to the oppressor, was agreeable. They protected at the same time that they were amused. We may add that the theatrical caravans of the bowlinggreen continued to howl and to cabal against the Laughing Man. Nothing could be better for his success. Enemies make a useful noise, which give point and vitality to the triumph. A friend is sooner weary of praising than an enemy of abusing. To abuse does not hurt. Enemies do not know that. They cannot help insulting us;

and in this consists their utility.

They are unable to hold their

tongues, and thus keep the public awake.

"Chaos Vanquished" drew even greater crowds.

Ursus kept to himself what Master Nicless had said of intriguers and complaints in high places, and did not tell Gwynplaine, so as not to trouble the ease of his acting by any extraneous thought. evil was to come, he would know it soon enough.

(To be continued.)

If