In appalling masks; hideous, hair, red-eyed
Jacks in Boxes; Vampire Kites; demoniacal Tum-
blers who wouldn't lie down, and were perpetually
flying forward, to stare infants out of countenance;
his soul perfectly revelled. They were his only relief,
and safety-valve. He was great in such inventions.
Anything suggestive of a Pony-nightmare, was de-
licious to him. He had even lost money (and he
took to that toy very kindly) by getting up Goblin
slides for magic-lanterns, whereon the Powers of
Darkness were depicted as a sort of supernatural
shell-fish, with human faces. In intensifying the por-
traiture of Giants, he had sunk quite a little capital;
and, though no painter himself, he could indicate, for
the instruction of his artists, with a piece of chalk,
a certain furtive leer for the countenances of those
monsters, which was safe to destroy the peace of mind
of any young gentleman between the ages of six and
eleven, for the whole Christmas or Midsummer
Vacation.
What he was in toys, he was (as most men are) in
other things. You may easily suppose, therefore,
that within the great green cape, which reached down
to the calves of his legs, there was buttoned up to the
chin an uncommonly pleasant fellow; and that he was
about as choice a spirit, and as agreeable a compan-
ion, as ever stood in a pair of bull-headed looking
boots with mahogany-coloured tops.
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