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among the vulgar, at times, by the melancholy kind of cry which it
utters, and the insignia of death which it wears upon its corslet.'"
He here closed the book and leaned forward in the chair, placing
himself accurately in the position which I had occupied at the moment of
beholding "the monster."
"Ah, here it is," he presently exclaimed--"it is reascending the face
of the hill, and a very remarkable looking creature I admit it to be.
Still, it is by no means so large or so distant as you imagined it,--for
the fact is that, as it wriggles its way up this thread, which some
spider has wrought along the window-sash, I find it to be about the
sixteenth of an inch in its extreme length, and also about the sixteenth
of an inch distant from the pupil of my eye."
HOP-FROG
I never knew anyone 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
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