a Punch
figure, rolling, bawling, laughing, hallooing; one of those fellows who
come stealthily behind you, clap their hands on your head, and cry out
suddenly: 'Who's this?' Who pull away your chair at the moment you are
going to sit down; who snatch from you your handkerchief just when you
wish to use it; and who, on these occasions, when you look at them with an
angry air, answer you with a broad grin, and a stare of imperturbable
assurance: '_A capital joke!_'

You have had yours; and mine is named Ganguernet. My first acquaintance
with him was at Rheims. He was a complete adept in his profession, and as
a regular joke-player, master of all the tricks of his trade. Well skilled
was he in the art of attaching a piece of meat to the bell-rope of a
porter's lodge, so that all the wandering dogs about town would snap at
the tempting bait, and awaken the mystified domestics ten times a night.
Very expert was he also at cutting tradesmen's signs in two pieces, and
substituting one for another. On one occasion he took the sign of a
hair-dresser, cut it in two, and added the latter part to that of one of
my neighbours; so that it read as follows: _Monsieur Roblot lets out
carriages and false toupees, after the Paris fashion_.

But if M. Ganguernet was not the most agreeable companion in the city,
still less so was he in the country, where indeed his presence, to me at
least, was always a perfect nuisance. He knew how to scatter the hair,
adroitly clipped from a brush, between the sheets of a friend, so that the
victim, before he had been a quarter of an hour in bed, would become
furious with the itching. He would pierce the partition between two
sleeping apartments, so as to pass through it a piece of twine which he
had cunningly fastened to your bed-clothes, and then, when he found that
you were asleep, he would gently pull the string, until the covering was
all drawn down to your feet. You awake half-frozen, for Ganguernet always
chooses a cold damp night for this trick, draw up the covering, wrap
yourself carefully up, and very innocently resume your slumbers; then
Ganguernet, gently pulling his cord, again strips you naked; again you are
benumbed with cold; and when you begin to utter imprecations in the dark,
his detestable voice is heard bawling through the hole: 'What a capital
joke!'

Did Ganguernet chance to fall in with one of those simple-minded
individuals, whose countenances invite mystification, he would st