phew has all but confessed, they have badgered him
so. Ah! ah! justice!

15th November. There are overwhelming proofs against the nephew, who was
his uncle's heir. I shall preside at the sessions.

25th January. To death! to death! to death! I have had him condemned
to death! Ah! ah! The advocate-general spoke like an angel! Ah! ah! Yet
another! I shall go to see him executed!

10th March. It is done. They guillotined him this morning. He died very
well! very well! That gave me pleasure! How fine it is to see a man's
head cut off!

Now, I shall wait, I can wait. It would take such a little thing to let
myself be caught.

The manuscript contained yet other pages, but without relating any new
crime.

Alienist physicians to whom the awful story has been submitted declare
that there are in the world many undiscovered madmen as adroit and as
much to be feared as this monstrous lunatic.

THE MASK

There was a masquerade ball at the Elysee-Montmartre that evening.
It was the 'Mi-Careme', and the crowds were pouring into the brightly
lighted passage which leads to the dance ball, like water flowing
through the open lock of a canal. The loud call of the orchestra,
bursting like a storm of sound, shook the rafters, swelled through the
whole neighborhood and awoke, in the streets and in the depths of the
houses, an irresistible desire to jump, to get warm, to have fun, which
slumbers within each human animal.

The patrons came from every quarter of Paris; there were people of all
classes who love noisy pleasures, a little low and tinged with debauch.
There were clerks and girls--girls of every description, some wearing
common cotton, some the finest batiste; rich girls, old and covered with
diamonds, and poor girls of sixteen, full of the desire to revel, to
belong to men, to spend money. Elegant black evening suits, in search
of fresh or faded but appetizing novelty, wandering through the excited
crowds, looking, searching, while the masqueraders seemed moved above
all by the desire for amusement. Already the far-famed quadrilles had
attracted around them a curious crowd. The moving hedge which encircled
the four dancers swayed in and out like a snake, sometimes nearer and
sometimes farther away, according to the motions of the performers. The
two women, whose lower limbs seemed to be attached to their bodies by
rubber springs, were making wonderful and surprising motions with their
legs. Their partners hopped a