A venerable, gray-headed man, who had laid down the colic, and who, I found, wanted an heir to his estate, snatched up an undutiful son that had been thrown into the heap by an angry father.  The graceless youth, in less than a quarter of an hour, pulled the old gentleman by the beard, and had liked to have knocked his brains out; so that meeting the true father, who came toward him with a fit of the gripes, he begged him to take his son again, and give him back his colic; but they were incapable, either of them, to recede from the choice they had made.  A poor galley slave, who had thrown down his chains, took up the gout in their stead, but made such wry faces that one might easily perceive he was no great gainer by the bargain.

The female world were very busy among themselves in bartering for features; one was trucking a lock of gray hairs for a carbuncle; and another was making over a short waist for a pair of round shoulders; but on all these occasions there was not one of them who did not think the new blemish, as soon as she had got it into her possession, much more disagreeable than the old one.

I must not omit my own particular adventure.  My friend with the long visage had no sooner taken upon him my short face, but he made such a grotesque figure in it, that as I looked upon him, I could not forbear laughing at myself, insomuch that I put my own face out of countenance.  The poor gentleman was so sensible of the ridicule, that I found he was ashamed of what he had done.  On the other side, I found that I myself had no great reason to triumph, for as I went to touch my forehead, I missed the place, and clapped my finger upon my upper lip.  Besides, as my nose was exceedingly prominent, I gave it two or three unlucky knocks as I was playing my hand about my face, and aiming at some other part of it.

I saw two other gentlemen by me who were in the same ridiculous circumstances.  These had made a foolish swap between a couple of thick bandy legs and two long trapsticks that had no calves to them.  One of these looked like a man walking upon stilts, and was so lifted up into the air, above his ordinary height, that his head turned round with it, while the other made such awkward circles, as he attempted to walk, that he scarcely knew how to move forward upon his new supporters.  Observing him to be a pleasant kind of a fellow, I stuck my cane in the ground, and told him I would lay him a bottle of wine that he did not march up to it on a line that I drew for him, in a quarter of an hour.

The heap was at last distributed among the two sexes, who made a most piteous sight, as they wandered up and down under the pressure of their several burthens.  The whole plain was filled with murmurs and complaints, groans and lamentations.  Jupiter, at length taking compassion on the poor mortals, ordered them a second time to lay down their loads, with a design to give everyone his own again.  They discharged themselves