e flea-tamer, quite melancholy and overwhelmed,--
"I know not what evil spirit struck me with blindness, that I did not
perceive the desertion of my army till the people were at the table and
prepared for the spectacle. You may imagine, Pepusch, how, on seeing
themselves deceived, the visitors first murmured, and then blazed out
into fury. They accused me of the vilest deceit, and, as they grew
hotter and hotter, and would no longer listen to any excuses, they were
falling upon me to take their own revenge. What could I do better, to
shun a load of blows, than immediately set the great microscope into
motion, and envelope the people in a cloud of insects, at which they
were terrified, as is natural to them?"

"But," said Pepusch, "tell me how it could possibly happen that your
well-disciplined troop, which had shown so much fidelity to you, could
so suddenly take themselves off, without your perceiving it at once?"

"Oh!" cried the flea-tamer, "O, Pepusch! HE has deserted me!--HE by
whom alone I was master--HE it is to whose treachery I ascribe all my
blindness, all my misery!"

"Have I not," said Pepusch, "have I not long ago warned you not to
place your reliance upon tricks which you cannot execute without the
possession of the MASTER? and on how ticklish a point rests that
possession, notwithstanding all your care, you have just now
experienced."

Pepusch farther gave the flea-tamer to understand, that he could not at
all comprehend how his being forced to give up these tricks could so
much disturb his life, as the invention of the microscope, and his
general dexterity in the preparation of microscopic glasses, had long
ago established him. But the flea-tamer, on the other hand, maintained,
that very different things lay hid in these subtleties, and that he
could not give them up without giving up his whole existence. Pepusch
interrupted him by asking, "Where is Doertje Elverdink?"

"Where is she?" screamed Leuwenhock, wringing his hands--"where is
Doertje Elverdink?--Gone!--gone into the wide world!--vanished!--But
strike me dead at once, Pepusch, for I see your wrath growing: make
short work of it with me!"

"There you see now," said Pepusch, with a gloomy look--"you see now
what comes of your folly, of your absurd proceedings. Who gave you a
right to confine the poor Doertje like a slave, and then again, merely
for the sake of alluring people, to make a show of her like some wonder
of natural history? Why d