Gorgon's face!"--"What does it all mean?"--"An insult to the

House!"--"The fellow ought to be put out!"--"What a madman!"--"Shame!

shame!"--"Adjourn the House!"--"No; let him finish his speech!"--"Talk

away, you buffoon!"

Lord Lewis of Duras, with his arms akimbo, shouted,--

Ah! it does one good to laugh. My spleen is cured. I propose a vote of

thanks in these terms: 'The House of Lords returns thanks to the Green

Box.'"

Gwynplaine, it may be remembered, had dreamt of a different welcome.

A man who, climbing up a steep and crumbling acclivity of sand above a

giddy precipice, has felt it giving way under his hands, his nails, his

elbows, his knees, his feet; who--losing instead of gaining on his

treacherous way, a prey to every terror of the danger, slipping back

instead of ascending, increasing the certainty of his fall by his very

efforts to gain the summit, and losing ground in every struggle for

safety--has felt the abyss approaching nearer and nearer, until the

certainty of his coming fall into the yawning jaws open to receive him,

has frozen the marrow of his bones;--that man has experienced the

sensations of Gwynplaine.

He felt the ground he had ascended crumbling under him, and his audience

was the precipice.

860

The Man Who Laughs