Edgar Allan Poe

“ While they were thus situated, the dwarf, who had followed closely at their heels, inciting them to keep up the commotion, took hold of their own chain at the intersection of the two portions which crossed the circle diametrically and at right angles. Here, with the rapidity of thought, he inserted the hook from which the chandelier had been wont to depend; and, in an instant, by some unseen agency, the chandelier-chain was drawn so far upward as to take the hook out of reach, and, as an inevitable consequence, to drag the ourang-outangs together in close connection, and face to face. ”

“ Come! what is the diversion? ”
“We call it,” ceplied the cripple, “the Eight Chained Ourang-Outangs, and it really is excellent sport if well enacted.”
“We will enact it,” remarked the king, drawing himself up, and lowering his eyelids.
“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 masqueraders will take you for real beasts—and, of course, they will be as much terrified as astonished.”
“O, this is exquisite!” exclaimed the king. “Hop-Frog! I will make a man of you.”
“The chains are for the purpose of increasing the confusion by their jangling. You are supposed to have escaped, en masse, from your keepers. Your majesty cannot conceive the effect produced, at a masquerade, by eight chained ourang-outangs, imagined to be real ones by most of the company ”

“ HOP-FROG
I never knew any one so keenly alive to a joke as the king was. He seemed to live only for joking. To tell a good story of the joke kind, and to tell it well, was the surest road to his favour. Thus it happened that his seven ministers were all noted for their accomplishments as jokers. They all took after the king, too, in being large, corpulent, oily men, as well as inimitable jokers, Whether people grow fat by joking, or whether there is something in fat itself which predisposes to a joke, I have never been quite able to determine ”

“ We want characters—characters, man—something novel—out of the way. We are wearied with this everlasting sameness. Come, drink! the wine will brighten your wits.”
Hop-Frog endeavoured, as usual, to get up a jest in reply to these advances from the king; but the effort was too much. It happened to be the poor dwarf’s birthday, and the command to drink to his “absent friends” forced the tears to his eyes. ”

“ But although Hop-Frog, through the distortion of his legs, could move only with great pain and difficulty along a road or floor, the prodigious muscular power which nature seemed to have bestowed upon his arms, by way of compensation for deficiency in the lower limbs, enabled him to perform many feats of wonderful dexterity, where trees or ropes were in question, or anything else to climb. ”

“ Characters, my fine fellow; we stand in need of characters—all of us—ha! ha! ha!” and as this was seriously meant for a joke, his laugh was chorusedby the seven.
Hop-Frog also laughed, although feebly and somewhat vacantly. “Come, come,” said the king, impatiently, “have you nothing to suggest?”
“I am endeavouring to think of something novel,” replied the dwarf, abstractedly, for he was quite bewildered by the wine.
“Endeavouring!” cried the tyrant, fiercely; “what do you mean by that? Ah, | perceive. You are sulky, and want more wine. Here, drink this!” ”

“ On some grand state occasion—I forget what—~the king determined to have a masquerade; and whenever a masquerade, or anything of that kind, occurred at our court, then the talents both of Hop-Frog and Trippetta were sure to be called in play. Hop-Frog, in especial, was so inventive in the way of getting up pageants, suggesting novel characters, and arranging costume, for masked balls, that nothing could be done, it seems, without his assistance. ”

“ Several of the great continental “powers” still retained their “fools,” who wore motley, with caps and bells, and who were expected to be always ready with sharp witticisms, at a moment's notice, in consideration of the crumbs that fell from the royal table. ”