the bottle of that delicate drink during dinner.  And then, again, the frog-man croaked away as if the salvation of his soul depended upon every note that he uttered.  And, in the midst of all this, the continuous braying of a donkey arose over all.  As for my old friend, Madame Joyeuse, I really could have wept for the poor lady, she appeared so terribly perplexed.  All she did, however, was to stand up in a corner, by the fireplace, and sing out incessantly at the top of her voice, “Cock-a-doodle-de-dooooooh!”

And now came the climax —­ the catastrophe of the drama.  As no resistance, beyond whooping and yelling and cock-a-doodling, was offered to the encroachments of the party without, the ten windows were very speedily, and almost simultaneously, broken in.  But I shall never forget the emotions of wonder and horror with which I gazed, when, leaping through these windows, and down among us pele-mele, fighting, stamping, scratching, and howling, there rushed a perfect army of what I took to be Chimpanzees, Ourang-Outangs, or big black baboons of the Cape of Good Hope.

I received a terrible beating —­ after which I rolled under a sofa and lay still.  After lying there some fifteen minutes, during which time I listened with all my ears to what was going on in the room, I came to same satisfactory denouement of this tragedy.  Monsieur Maillard, it appeared, in giving me the account of the lunatic who had excited his fellows to rebellion, had been merely relating his own exploits.  This gentleman had, indeed, some two or three years before, been the superintendent of the establishment, but grew crazy himself, and so became a patient.  This fact was unknown to the travelling companion who introduced me.  The keepers, ten in number, having been suddenly overpowered, were first well tarred, then —­ carefully feathered, and then shut up in underground cells.  They had been so imprisoned for more than a month, during which period Monsieur Maillard had generously allowed them not only the tar and feathers (which constituted his “system"), but some bread and abundance of water.  The latter was pumped on them daily.  At length, one escaping through a sewer, gave freedom to all the rest.

The “soothing system,” with important modifications, has been resumed at the chateau; yet I cannot help agreeing with Monsieur Maillard, that his own “treatment” was a very capital one of its kind.  As he justly observed, it was “simple —­ neat —­ and gave no trouble at all —­ not the least.”

I have only to add that, although I have searched every library in Europe for the works of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether, I have, up to the present day, utterly failed in my endeavors at procuring an edition.

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HOW TO WRITE A BLACKWOOD ARTICLE.

“In the name of the Prophet —­ figs!!”

          _ Cry of the Turkish fig-peddler_.