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Rh lion stung to diabolical rage with torture. The crowd of larrikins at the corner bellowed with wild laughter, and clapped their hands with delight. I threw myself on the ground and rolled over and over, hoping to extricate myself from that abominable couch, but in vain: its legs were round me like the arms of an octopus. I shouted 'Police, police, help, murder, mercy, mercy!'

Most fortunately my cries were heard, and about a dozen policemen rushed round the corner, knocking down twice that number of larrikins, and commenced belabouring the couch with their batons with all their might. That fiendish article loosened its hold, started up into its natural or unnatural shape, which was that of the death's-head, stinging-wasp, Astoragus himself, and bounded away like a racehorse, after giving me a parting kick. At that moment my patron the Demon made his appearance, and was duly informed of what had occurred.

'The villain, the incorrigible, irreclaimable villain!' he said excitedly: 'I'll boil him in petroleum and rackarock for this, and I'll command Doctor Julius to do it.'

'Oh please, sir,' said I, rubbing myself and blubbering, 'don't hurt the poor fellow; to be a larrikin and live here is punishment enough, and I never bear malice.'

'I tell you,' roared the Demon, with his usual rabbit-trap snap, 'and don't you tell me—I'll roast him in a furnace of hissing phosphorus of five thousand degrees of heat, I will.'

But, notwithstanding his loud threats and my anguish, I could see that he was ready to burst with suppressed laughter.

So passed my first day in that infernal city, and although I was horrified at its revolting scenes, and almost stung to death by the larrikin couch, yet I felt, as I lay down in bed