official, wherever
she found him. The hideous but beneficent French Revolution would have
been deferred, or would have fallen short of completeness, or even
might not have happened at all, if Marie Antoinette had made the unwise
mistake of not being born. The world owes a great deal to the French
Revolution, and consequently to its two chief promoters, Louis the Poor
in Spirit and his queen.

We did not buy any wooden images of the Lion, nor any ivory or ebony
or marble or chalk or sugar or chocolate ones, or even any photographic
slanders of him. The truth is, these copies were so common, so
universal, in the shops and everywhere, that they presently became as
intolerable to the wearied eye as the latest popular melody usually
becomes to the harassed ear. In Lucerne, too, the wood carvings of
other sorts, which had been so pleasant to look upon when one saw them
occasionally at home, soon began to fatigue us. We grew very tired
of seeing wooden quails and chickens picking and strutting around
clock-faces, and still more tired of seeing wooden images of the alleged
chamois skipping about wooden rocks, or lying upon them in family
groups, or peering alertly up from behind them. The first day, I would
have bought a hundred and fifty of these clocks if I had the money--and
I did buy three--but on the third day the disease had run its course,
I had convalesced, and was in the market once more--trying to sell.
However, I had no luck; which was just as well, for the things will be
pretty enough, no doubt, when I get them home.

For years my pet aversion had been the cuckoo clock; now here I was, at
last, right in the creature's home; so wherever I went that distressing
"HOO'hoo! HOO'hoo! HOO'hoo!" was always in my ears. For a nervous man,
this was a fine state of things. Some sounds are hatefuler than others,
but no sound is quite so inane, and silly, and aggravating as the
"HOO'hoo" of a cuckoo clock, I think. I bought one, and am carrying it
home to a certain person; for I have always said that if the opportunity
ever happened, I would do that man an ill turn.

What I meant, was, that I would break one of his legs, or something of
that sort; but in Lucerne I instantly saw that I could impair his mind.
That would be more lasting, and more satisfactory every way. So I bought
the cuckoo clock; and if I ever get home with it, he is "my meat," as
they say in the mines. I thought of another candidate--a book-reviewer
whom