ing, and now appeared quite thick and shapeless. The
fly-work of the other seemed also to be at a stand; he was about to sit
down, panting and breathless, but, perceiving how his adversary lay
there, half dead, he flew suddenly upon him, and began to belabour him
soundly with his fists. The host, however, pulled him off, and declared
that he would turn him out of the house, if he did not keep quiet. If
they both wished to show their juggler's tricks, they were welcome to
do so, but without quarrelling and fighting like blackguards.

The flying gentleman seemed to take it somewhat ill that the host
should suppose he was a juggler. He protested that he was nothing less
than a vagabond, who went about playing off legerdemain tricks; he had
formerly been ballet-master to a celebrated king, but now practised in
private as an amateur, and was called, as his functions required he
should be, Legenie. If, in his just indignation at the abominable
fellow there, he had sprung somewhat higher than was fitting, that was
his own business, and concerned no one else.

The host on his part opined, that all this did not justify any
fisty-cuffs; to which the amateur replied, that mine host did not know
the malicious fellow, or he would willingly allow his back to be
drubbed black and blue. He had formerly been a French custom-house
officer, and now gained a livelihood by blood-letting, cupping, and
shaving, and was called Monsieur Leech, a nuisance to every body, by
his awkwardness, stupidity, and gluttony. It was not enough that the
scoundrel, wherever he met him, whisked away the wine from his very
lips, as he had done just now, but he was plotting to carry off his
bride, whom he intended to carry home from Frankfort.

The Douanier had heard all that the Amateur advanced, and, glancing at
him with his little malicious eyes, said to the host, "Don't believe a
syllable that the gallows-bird there is chattering. An admirable
ballet-master, truly! who with his elephant feet crushes the legs of
the fair dancers, and with his pirouette knocks a tooth out of the
manager's jaw at the wing. And his verses, too! they have as awkward
feet as himself, and tumble here and there, like drunkards, treading
the thoughts to pap. Because he flutters heavily in the air at times,
like a drowsy gander, the conceited peacock fancies he is to have the
fair-one for his bride."

At this the indignant Amateur cried out, "thou, Satan's worm, thou
shalt feel th