night. On bad roads, up hills, and where there were too many ruts, or

there was too much mud, the man buckled the trace round his neck and

pulled fraternally, side by side with the wolf. They had thus grown old

together. They encamped at haphazard on a common, in the glade of a

wood, on the waste patch of grass where roads intersect, at the

outskirts of villages, at the gates of towns, in market-places, in

public walks, on the borders of parks, before the entrances of churches.

When the cart drew up on a fair green, when the gossips ran up

open-mouthed and the curious made a circle round the pair, Ursus

harangued and Homo approved. Homo, with a bowl in his mouth, politely

made a collection among the audience. They gained their livelihood. The

wolf was lettered, likewise the man. The wolf had been trained by the

man, or had trained himself unassisted, to divers wolfish arts, which

swelled the receipts. "Above all things, do not degenerate into a man,"

his friend would say to him.

Never did the wolf bite: the man did now and then. At least, to bite was

the intent of Ursus. He was a misanthrope, and to italicize his

misanthropy he had made himself a juggler. To live, also; for the

stomach has to be consulted. Moreover, this juggler-misanthrope, whether

to add to the complexity of his being or to perfect it, was a doctor. To

be a doctor is little: Ursus was a ventriloquist. You heard him speak

without his moving his lips. He counterfeited, so as to deceive you, any

one's accent or pronunciation. He imitated voices so exactly that you

believed you heard the people themselves. All alone he simulated the

murmur of a crowd, and this gave him a right to the title of

Engastrimythos, which he took. He reproduced all sorts of cries of

The Man Who Laughs