now stand, because I have duties to others elsewhere, and my heart is not here.  What passed within me has nothing to do with you.  When the man whom you call Usher of the Black Rod came to seek me by order of the woman whom you call the Queen, the idea struck me for a moment that I would refuse to come.  But it seemed to me that the hidden hand of God pressed me to the spot, and I obeyed.  I felt that I must come amongst you.  Why?  Because of my rags of yesterday.  It is to raise my voice among those who have eaten their fill that God mixed me up with the famished.  Oh, have pity!  Of this fatal world to which you believe yourselves to belong you know nothing.  Placed so high, you are out of it.  But I will tell you what it is.  I have had experience enough.  I come from beneath the pressure of your feet.  I can tell you your weight.  Oh, you who are masters, do you know what you are? do you see what you are doing?  No.  Oh, it is dreadful!  One night, one night of storm, a little deserted child, an orphan alone in the immeasurable creation, I made my entrance into that darkness which you call society.  The first thing that I saw was the law, under the form of a gibbet; the second was riches, your riches, under the form of a woman dead of cold and hunger; the third, the future, under the form of a child left to die; the fourth, goodness, truth, and justice, under the figure of a vagabond, whose sole friend and companion was a wolf.”

Just then Gwynplaine, stricken by a sudden emotion, felt the sobs rising in his throat, causing him, most unfortunately, to burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter.

The contagion was immediate.  A cloud had hung over the assembly.  It might have broken into terror; it broke into delight.  Mad merriment seized the whole House.  Nothing pleases the great chambers of sovereign man so much as buffoonery.  It is their revenge upon their graver moments.

The laughter of kings is like the laughter of the gods.  There is always a cruel point in it.  The lords set to play.  Sneers gave sting to their laughter.  They clapped their hands around the speaker, and insulted him.  A volley of merry exclamations assailed him like bright but wounding hailstones.

“Bravo, Gwynplaine!”—­“Bravo, Laughing Man!”—­“Bravo, Snout of the Green Box!”—­“Mask of Tarrinzeau Field!”—­“You are going to give us a performance.”—­“That’s right; talk away!”—­“There’s a funny fellow!”—­“How the beast does laugh, to be sure!”—­“Good-day, pantaloon!”—­“How d’ye do, my lord clown!”—­“Go on with your speech!”—­“That fellow a peer of England?”—­“Go on!”—­“No, no!”—­“Yes, yes!”

The Lord Chancellor was much disturbed.

A deaf peer, James Butler, Duke of Ormond, placing his hand to his ear like an ear trumpet, asked Charles Beauclerk, Duke of St. Albans,—­

“How has he voted?”

“Non-content.”

“By heavens!” said Ormond, “I can understand it, with such a face as his.”