filled with a ragged and enthusiastic audience. It was composed of

watermen, chairmen, coachmen, and bargemen, and sailors, just ashore,

spending their wages in feasting and women. In it there were felons,

ruffians, and blackguards, who were soldiers condemned for some crime

against discipline to wear their red coats, which were lined with black,

inside out, and from thence the name of blackguard, which the French

turn into blagueurs. All these flowed from the street into the

theatre, and poured back from the theatre into the tap. The emptying of

tankards did not decrease their success.

Amidst what it is usual to call the scum, there was one taller than the

rest, bigger, stronger, less poverty-stricken, broader in the shoulders;

dressed like the common people, but not ragged.

Admiring and applauding everything to the skies, clearing his way with

his fists, wearing a disordered periwig, swearing, shouting, joking,

never dirty, and, at need, ready to blacken an eye or pay for a bottle.

This frequenter was the passer-by whose cheer of enthusiasm has been

recorded.

This connoisseur was suddenly fascinated, and had adopted the Laughing

Man. He did not come every evening, but when he came he led the

public--applause grew into acclamation--success rose not to the roof,

for there was none, but to the clouds, for there were plenty of them.

Which clouds (seeing that there was no roof) sometimes wept over the

masterpiece of Ursus.

492

The Man Who Laughs