the excited Baron, `scores of times aye scores of times I have and you may believe me or not as you like for though --' `To ascertain,' persisted the Magician, `whether you have in your possession, and if so -- ' `But yet' broke in Muggzwig, `he always would and as he used to say if --' `And if so,' shouted the man in a cloak despairing of the Magician ever getting through the sentence, `to know what you would like to be done with regard to Signor Blowski.' So saying, they retired a few steps, and waited for the Baron's reply, and their host, without further delay delivered the following remarkable speech: `And though I have no wish to provoke the enmity which considering the provocations I have received and really if you reckon them up they are more than any mortal man let alone a Baron for the family temper has been known for years to be beyond nay the royal family themselves will hardly boast of considering too that he has so long a time kept which I shouldn't have found out only that rascal Blowski said and how he could bring himself to tell all those lies I can't think for I always considered him quite honest and of course wishing if possible to prove him innocent and the walking-stick since it is absolutely necessary in such matters and begging your pardon I consider the toad and all that humbug but that's between you and me and even when I had sent for it by two of my bandits and one of them bringing it to me yesterday for which I gave him a purse of gold and I hope he was grateful for it and though the employment of bandits is at all times and particularly in this case if you consider the but even on account of some civilities he showed me though I daresay there was something and by-the-bye perhaps that was the reason he pitched himself I mean him out of the window for --' here he paused, seeing that his visitors in despair had left the room. Now, Reader, prepare yourself for the last chapter.

ALL was silence. The Baron Slogdod was seated in the hall of his ancestors, in his chair of state, but his countenance wore not its usual expression of calm content: there was an uncomfortable restlessness about him which betokened a mind ill at ease, for why? closely packed in the hall around, so densely wedged together as to resemble one vast living ocean without a gap or hollow, were seated seven thousand human beings: all eyes were bent upon him, each breadth was held in eager expectation, and he felt, he felt in his inmost heart, though he vainly endeavoured to conceal his uneasiness under a forced and unnatural smile, that something awful was about to happen. Reader! if your nerves are not adamant, turn not this page!

Before the Baron's seat there stood a table: what sat thereon? well knew the trembling crowds, as with blanched cheek and tottering knees they gazed upon it, and shrank from it even while they gazed: ugly, deformed, ghastly and hideous it sat, with large dull eyes, and bloated cheeks, the magic toad!

All feared and loathed it, save the Baron only, who rousing himself at intervals from his gloomy meditations, would raise his toe, and give it a sportive kick, of which it took not the smallest notice. He feared it not, no, deeper terrors possessed his mind, and clouded his brow with anxious thought.

Beneath the table was crouched a quivering mass, so abject and grovelling as scarce to bear the form of humanity: none regarded, and none pitied it.

Then outspake the Magician: `The man I accuse, if man indeed he be, is -- Blowski!' At the word, the shrunken form arose, and displayed to the horrified assembly the well-known vulture face: he opened his mouth to speak, but no sound issued from his pale and trembling lips . . . a solemn stillness settled on all around . . . the Magician raised the walking-stick of destiny, and in thrilling accents pronounced the fatal words: `Recreant vagabond! misguided reprobate! receive thy due deserts!' . . . Silently he sank to the earth . . . all was dark for a moment, . . . returning light revealed to their gaze . . . a heap of mashed potatoe . . . a globular form faintly loomed through the darkness, and howled once audibly, then all was still. Reader, our tale is told.