The Argosy, Vol. XXIV, No. 3 — page 146: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

530° A MONTH IN THE MOON. They hastened to assure him of their deep sympathy with his sufferings ; and the doctor especially had the happy idea of laying stress upon his own scientific curiosity. This had the desired effect on Kaddour, who thus pro- ceeded : ‘You will be somewhat surprised to learn that I belong to the same nation as yourselves—the French. Not that I have any decided proofs to give, but I have a vague recollection of having been called Charles when I was quite little. I have never known my family name, for parents, country, home (however humble that may have been), were all stolen from me at once, at the outset of my miserable life. I have a conviction, however, that I must have been born in France, from various little incidents and words caught up here and there, and long pondered in secret, and from the fact that the French language came naturally to me. ‘“ I must have been two or three years old when they carried me off. One day a traveling circus settled down near us. I had been taken to see one of the performances, and from that time my head was filled with the images of clowns, jockeys, horses, and performing dogs. Led by curiosity, I crept on hands and knees under the canvas covering of the tent one day, in order to see my paradise again. I had been there but a few minutes, gazing at the acrobats as they packed up their belongings in readiness to depart, when sud- denly a great hand was clapped on my mouth; I was caught up, carried off, and thrown into a dark corner. After a good cry, I must have fallen - asleep. When I awoke I was in one of the moving caravans I had so admired. ‘It may, perhaps, surprise you that I should have such a vivid recollection of some things, while others are so vague. I give them to you for what they are worth, for I am not at all certain as to my age at that time, only I look back to these first impressions as to the only bright spot in life. All the cruel tortures have never been able to efface the memory of our sunny little garden, of my mother’s kisses, and of my father’s cheery laugh. ‘“‘Gryphins and Vogel were the proprietors and directors of the traveling circus. They had a wretched dwarf with them as chief attraction. He fell ill. Fearing lest he might die, the scoundrels conceived the diabolical notion of manufacturing a dwarf. I was condemned never to grow. ‘They in- cased me in a steel corslet that entirely stopped the development of my body ; my limbs were tightly bound in linen bands, as the Chinese women bind their feet. ‘‘'The plan was a success, as you may see. But it was not effected with- out a prodigious outlay of time, and many brutal blows and bitter tears. What did these tigers care? At the end of a few years I was exhibited in public under the title of General Midgy, ex commander in chief of the Myr- midons of the Sultan of Batavia. ‘“‘T will pass over the insults and sufferings that were my daily lot. Yet never can I forget them! ‘They are too deeply engraved on my memory to be effaced. I was exhibited all over the world, and I learned to hate hu- manity in every language. The scoundrels who had deformed my body took much money, while I, far from sharing in the profits, was kept in captivity. CORMEMOOOKS