Page:Man Who Laughs (Estes and Lauriat 1869) v1.djvu/22

2 Ursus and Homo went about from cross-road to cross-road, from the High Street of Aberystwith to the High Street of Jedburgh, from country-side to country-side, from shire to shire, from town to town. One market exhausted, they went on to another. Ursus lived in a small van upon wheels, which Homo was civilized enough to draw by day and guard by 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 hap-hazard 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, or before the entrances of churches. When the cart drew up on a fair ground, where the gossips ran up open-mouthed and the curious formed a circle round the pair, Ursus harangued and Homo approved. Then Homo, with a bowl in his mouth, politely made a collection among the audience. Thus they earned 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 tricks, which swelled the receipts. "Above all things, do not degenerate into a man," his friend would say to him.

The wolf never bit: the man did, now and then. At least, that was his intention. He was a misanthrope, and to increase 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 nothing: Ursus was also a ventriloquist. You could hear him speak without his moving his lips. He counterfeited, so as to