home, he slunk out of society. The great house was closed, and the
little office, dirtier and more grasping than ever, opened. Every
witness to his outburst, myself included, was studiously avoided. I met
him often; but no sign of recognition escaped him.

Some months afterward, in passing his filthy little street, I found the
remorseless little door had gulped a policeman. Pulling apart its
ferocious jaws, and peering in, I saw the straight-backed chair; but the
body which seemed a part of it was much stiffer and more angular. The
yellow-wash on the wall was a paltry reflex of the ghastly yellow of his
faded visage; for the iron face was the face of a corpse.

Men who stood vacantly staring in muttered, "Beast!" women, shrinking
from the unsightly spectacle, whispered, "Beast!" and children, gazing
in silent horror with the rest, stared "Beast!" out of their
wonder-stricken eyes. So hard did they stare, so loud did they mutter,
and so many instances did they rehearse of the foul wrongs he had
committed, that I am doubtful about the matter myself, and ask you,
reader, Was he a Beast?

LEAVES IN THE LIFE OF AN IDLER.

Leaf the First.

When a man whom you have every reason to believe not only the coolest,
but the most unimpressible, of beings, suddenly turns white as a ghost
and shivers with a nervous spasm, it is safe to suppose he is
frightened. But when terror, turning into rage, changes one of the most
attentive and respectful of servants into a madman, it is scarcely safe
to suppose anything. As it was, I stared in mute amazement, and he
glared at me as though I had struck him. While waiting for a light, I
carelessly put my hand into a basket of hot-house vegetables. The small
egg-plant I took up certainly _did_ weigh twenty pounds, and when I
attempted to lift the basket the handle bent double; but why this should
frighten a man like Marcel, or provoke him to anger, is as inexplicable
as it is surprising.

He is pacing up and down the hall in a state of the wildest excitement;
and I, with man's truest comfort,--tobacco,--am left to my meditations.

What combination of circumstances reduced him to a porter, I cannot for
the life of me imagine. His hand is as soft as a woman's; and his brow
has a breadth of brain that would dignify a Senator. Notwithstanding the
scrupulous deference in his tone, his manner possesses the quiet ease of
a gentleman, to as great a degree as any I ever saw.

The utter inco