eal from
him during his sleep his coat and pantaloons, whose dimensions with needle
and thread he would contrive greatly to diminish. He would then awaken his
victim, begging him to dress himself as soon as possible, and join a
hunting-party. The unsuspecting subject of the joke, thus suddenly roused,
would try to put on his pantaloons, but could not get into them. 'Good
Heavens!' exclaims Ganguernet, with affected astonishment; 'why, what is
the matter, my dear Sir?--you are terribly swollen!' 'Am I?' 'You are
indeed, prodigiously!' 'Do you really mean it?' 'I may be mistaken, but
come dress yourself, and let us go down, and see what the others say.'

'But I cannot get on my clothes.'

'Ah! that's it, you are so puffed up. It must be a thundering attack of
the dropsy!'

And this would continue, the poor fellow, pale and trembling, in vain
endeavoring to get on his clothes, until the tormentor, with a hideous
chuckle, would come out with his famous sentence: 'Ha! ha! a capital
joke!'

There was one of his tricks which appeared to me to be truly abominable.
He played it upon a person reputed to be a brave man, but who was
nevertheless horribly frightened. One night, after getting snugly into
bed, this gentleman felt something cold and slimy along side of him, he
touched it with his foot; it seemed a round elongated body; he placed his
hand upon it; it was a serpent coiled upon itself! In an ecstacy of
terror, he leaped from the bed with a cry of disgust and horror, when
Ganguernet made his appearance, shaking his fat sides and roaring out:
'What a capital joke!' It was an eel-skin filled with water, that had
caused the panic. The enraged gentleman would have broken the head of the
joker, but Ganguernet throwing a pitcher of water over the sans-culotte
sufferer, made his escape, yelling out at the top of his voice: 'A capital
joke!--a capital joke!' The master of the house and his guests came
running in at the outcry, and with much difficulty succeeded in pacifying
the mystified individual; assuring him that Ganguernet, though fond of
fun, was in the main a charming good fellow, a pleasant boon companion,
and one without whom, especially in the country, it was impossible to
drive away ennui.

Our readers may perhaps think with us, that, on the contrary, this man was
one of those insufferable beings who are constantly intruding upon the
pleasures and comforts of others; like a dog in a game of nine-pins,
overturning