disappeared. Nothing now was visible but the sea.

* * * * *

The Man Who Laughs

"The Man Who Laughs" ("L'Homme qui Rit") was called by its
author "A Romance of English History," and was written during
the period Hugo spent in exile in Guernsey. Like "The Toilers
of the Sea," its immediate predecessor, the main theme of the
story is human heroism, confronted with the superhuman tyranny
of blind chance. As a passionate cry on behalf of the tortured
and deformed, and the despised and oppressed of the world,
"The Man Who Laughs" is irresistible. Of it Hugo himself says
in the preface: "The true title of this book should be
'Aristocracy'"--inasmuch as it was intended as an arraignment
of the nobility for their vices, crimes, and selfishness. "The
Man Who Laughs" was first published in 1869.

_I.--The Child_

Ursus and Homo were old friends. Ursus was a man, Homo a wolf. The two
went about together from town to town, from country-side to
country-side. Ursus lived in a small van upon wheels which Homo drew by
day and guarded by night.

Ursus was a juggler, a ventriloquist, a doctor, and a misanthrope. He
was also something of a poet. The wolf and he had grown old together.

One bitterly cold night in January 1690, when Ursus and his van were at
Weymouth, a small vessel put off from Portland. It contained a dozen
people, and it left behind on the rock, and alone, a small boy.

The people were called Comprachicos. They bought children, and
understood how to mutilate and deform them, thus making them valuable
for exhibition at fairs. But an act of parliament had just been passed
to destroy the trade of the Comprachicos. Hence this flight from
Portland, and the forsaking of the child.

The vessel was wrecked and all on board perished off the coast of
France, but not before one of the passengers had inscribed on a piece of
parchment the name of the child and the name of a certain English
prisoner who could identify the child. This parchment was sealed in a
bottle and left to the waves.

The child watched the disappearance of the boat. He was stupefied at
finding himself alone; the men who had left him were the only people he
had ever known, and they had failed him. He did not know where he was,
but he knew that he must seek food and shelter. It was very cold and
dark, and the boy was barefoot, but he made his way acr