Ursus had made his arrangements with the tavern keeper, Master Nicless, who, owing to his respect for the law, would not admit the wolf without charging him extra.

The placard, “Gwynplaine, the Laughing Man,” taken from its nail in the Green Box, was hung up close to the sign of the inn.  The sitting-room of the tavern had, as we have seen, an inside door which opened into the court.  By the side of the door was constructed off-hand, by means of an empty barrel, a box for the money-taker, who was sometimes Fibi and sometimes Vinos.  This was managed much as at present.  Pay and pass in.  Under the placard announcing the Laughing Man was a piece of wood, painted white, hung on two nails, on which was written in charcoal in large letters the title of Ursus’s grand piece, “Chaos Vanquished.”

In the centre of the balcony, precisely opposite the Green Box, and in a compartment having for entrance a window reaching to the ground, there had been partitioned off a space “for the nobility.”  It was large enough to hold, in two rows, ten spectators.

“We are in London,” said Ursus.  “We must be prepared for the gentry.”

He had furnished this box with the best chairs in the inn, and had placed in the centre a grand arm-chair of yellow Utrecht velvet, with a cherry-coloured pattern, in case some alderman’s wife should come.

They began their performances.  The crowd immediately flocked to them, but the compartment for the nobility remained empty.  With that exception their success became so great that no mountebank memory could recall its parallel.  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 caused was as that of a sparrow-hawk flapping his wings in a cage of goldfinches, and feeding in their seed-trough.  Gwynplaine ate up their public.

Besides the small fry, the swallowers of swords and the grimace makers, real performances took place on the green.  There was a circus of women, ringing from morning till night with a magnificent peal 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 have equalled our present climbers of the Pyrenees—­Dulma, Bordenave, and Meylonga—­who from the peak of Pierrefitte descend to the plateau of Limacon, an almost perpendicular height.  There was a travelling menagerie, where was to be seen a performing tiger, who, lashed by the keeper, snapped at the whip and tried to swallow the lash.  Even this comedian of jaws and claws was eclipsed in success.

Curiosity, applause, receipts, crowds, the Laughing Man monopolized everything.  It happened in the twinkling of an eye.  Nothing was thought of but the Green Box.