Page:Man Who Laughs (Estes and Lauriat 1869) v2.djvu/34

14 flocked to them, but the compartment for the nobility remained empty. With that exception their success became so great that no showman had ever seen anything to equal it. All Southwark ran in crowds to admire the Laughing Man.

The merry-andrews and mountebanks of Tarrinzeau Field were aghast at Gwynplaine. The effect he created was similar to that of a sparrow-hawk flapping his wings in a cage of goldfinches, and feeding in their seed-trough. Gwynplaine gobbled up their patrons. Besides the small fry, such as the swallowers of swords, and the grimace makers, real performances took place on the green. There was a circus resounding from morning till night with the blare of all sorts of instruments,—psalteries, drums, rebecks, micamons, timbrels, reeds, dulcimers, gongs, chevrettes, bagpipes, German horns, English eschaqueils, pipes, flutes, and flageolets. In a large round tent were some tumblers, who could not equal our present climbers of the Pyrenees,—Dulma, Bordenave, and Meylonga,—who descend from the peak of Pierrefitte to the plateau of Limaçon, an almost perpendicular height. There was a travelling menagerie, with a performing tiger, who, when struck by the keeper, snapped at the whip and tried to swallow the lash. But even this comedian with jaws and claws was eclipsed in success. Curiosity, applause, receipts, crowds,—the Laughing Man monopolized everything. It all came about in the twinkling of an eye. Nothing was thought of but the Green Box.

Chaos Vanquished' is 'Chaos Victor, said Ursus, appropriating half Gwynplaine's success, and thus taking the wind out of his sails, as they say at sea. The success was prodigious. Still, it remained local. Fame does not cross the sea easily. It took a hundred and thirty years for the name of Shakspeare to penetrate