Page:Man Who Laughs (Estes and Lauriat 1869) v2.djvu/40

20 More than one, had she known the secret, would have fashioned her son's face in the Gwynplaine style. The head of an angel, which brings no money in, is not as desirable as that of a paying demon. One day the mother of a little child who was a marvel of beauty, and who acted the part of a cupid, exclaimed:—

"Our children are failures! A Gwynplaine alone is successful." And shaking her fist at her son, she added, "If I only knew your father, wouldn't he catch it!"

Gwynplaine was the goose with the golden eggs. What a marvellous phenomenon! There was an uproar through all the caravans. The mountebanks, at once enthusiastic and exasperated, looked at Gwynplaine and gnashed their teeth. Admiring anger is called envy. How it howls! They tried to break up "Chaos Vanquished;" made a cabal, hissed, yelled, and shouted. This gave Ursus an excuse to make out-of-door harangues to the populace, and for his friend Tom-Jim-Jack to use his fists to re-establish order. His pugilistic marks of friendship brought him still more under the notice and regard of Ursus and Gwynplaine,—at a distance, however; for the party in the Green Box sufficed to themselves, and held aloof from the rest of the world, and because Tom-Jim-Jack, the leader of the mob, seemed a sort of lordly bully, without a tie, without a friend; a smasher of windows, a manager of men, now here, now gone, hail-fellow-well-met with every one, companion of none.

This raging envy against Gwynplaine was not quelled by a few friendly blows from Tom-Jim-Jack. Violence having failed, the mountebanks of Tarrinzeau Field fell back on a petition. They appealed to the authorities. This is the usual course. Against an unpleasant success we first try to stir up the crowd, and then we petition to the magistrate.