Nothing could be more horrible than the sight of this gifted man herding with these beasts. It was like a lion devouring carrion with wolves. Aside from the pleasure of the palate, his enjoyment of the scene was derived from the cynical contempt with which he regarded it. Having descended to the lowest depths of human degradation, he had arrived at a point where he drew his keenest relish from the inconsistencies, the absurdities and the sufferings of his fellow-men. In order that he might behold a scene in which all the elements of the horribly grotesque were combined, he determined to provoke the egotism and complacency of the quack to the very highest activity at this moment when his fortunes and his hopes were being undermined. After the excitement of the dance had abated, the concluding phase of all such orgies came in its inevitable sequence, and they began to drink great bumpers to each other's health. After all had been pledged, the judge proposed a toast to the "gypsy bride." The tongue of the quack was loosened in an instant and he poured forth an extravagant eulogy of her beauty and her devotion. "If she were mine, I should be on the ragged edge with jealousy every hour of the day and night," said the judge, as they set their glasses down. "Y-y-you'd have reason to! B-b-but I'm a horse of a different c-c-color, old boy! W-w-women have p-p-preferences," the doctor replied, pulling out the ends of his mustache and winking at the captain and his mate, who stupidly nodded their appreciation of the hit. "When honeysuckles close their petals to hummingbirds, Venus will shut the door on Adonis," responded the judge, draining his glass and smiling into its depths. The quack was too far gone in his cups to comprehend or even to be curious as to the significance of this sneer and went on sounding his own virtues and Pepeeta's beauty while the judge provoked him to the fullest exhibition of his colossal vanity. He took a sinister delight in drawing him out. It was the pleasure of a cat playing with the mouse, which it is about to devour, or of savages mocking the man who is about to run the gauntlet. He exulted in the contrast of this proud man's present confidence, and the humiliation which awaited him within the next few hours. The quack was an easy victim. His career of prosperity had met with but a single serious interruption and he had so entirely forgotten his dangerous sickness in his perfect health that he was seldom troubled by foreboding as to the future. Never had he possessed more confidence of life than at the very moment when all his hopes, all his confidence, all his faith, were about to be shattered.