Die digitale Landesbibliothek Oberösterreich

3:5 
2h 
“The beauty of ‘the game,” continued Hop-Frog, 
“lies in the fright it occasions among the women.” 
“Capital!” roared in chorus the monarch and his 
ministry. ~~ 
“I will equip you as ourang-outangs,’ proceeded 
the dwarf; “leave all that to me. The resemblance 
shall be so striking, that the company of masque- 
raders will take you for real beasts—and of course, 
they will be as much terrified as astonished.” 
“Oh, this is exquisite!” exclaimed the king. “Hop- 
Frog! I will make a man of vou.” 
“The chains are for the purpose of increasing 
the confusion hy their jangling. You are supposed 
to have escaped, en massé, from your keepers. 
Your majesty cannot conceive the effect pro- 
duced, at a masquerade, by eight chained ourang- 
outangs, imagined to be real ones by most of the 
company; and rushing in with savage cries, among 
the crowd of delicately and gorgeously habited 
men and women. The contrast is inimitable.” 
“It must be,” said the king: .and the council 
arose hurriedly (as it was growing late), to put 
in execution the scheme of Hop-Frog. . 
His ‘mode of 8quipping ‘the party as ourang- 
outangs was very simple, but effective enough for 
his purposes. The animals in question had, at the 
epoch of my story, very rarely been ‘Seen in any 
part of the civilised world; and as the imitations 
made by the dwarf were sufficiently beast-like and 
more than sufficiently hideous, their truthfulness 
to nature was thus thought to be secured. 
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