Albano could not disguise from him his horror at the deed. "I cannot repent it; listen," said Schoppe, and gave this account: "Even in Valencia thy uncle told me that he had met in Madrid such and such a fellow,--exactly like the Baldhead,--who carried round for show a wax-figure-cabinet of nothing but crazy creatures; often the whole cabinet would speak, and he himself would sit therein too, and help discourse; thy superstitious uncle procured and lent him spirits, too, and made evil and frightful things out of it all. "Once in a _Posada_[136] I heard in a sleeping chamber near mine all sorts of voices murmuring through each other and saying, 'Schoppe also is coming to us.' I rose; the strange chamber was shut. I listen and hear it again, the devilish cry, 'Schoppe comes in also.' My room had a balcony out of which I could, through the neighboring window, see by the moonlight into the noisy chamber. In horrible, frizzled shapes sat a mass of wax therein and spake, the waxen baldhead in the midst; but I sought the living one. The wax beasts exchange with one another their fixed ideas and slip me in among them: 'There is our honorary fellow-member peeping in,' said the wax baldhead. By Heaven! I must be short, my blood boils and burns again through my heart. I grow furious, take my weapon, and petition God for a peaceable, forbearing disposition. Unfortunately I observe, in a back corner not lighted by the moon, near a father of death and a pregnant woman of wax, a black cloak which stirs, and out of which peeps the living tone-leader, the Baldhead. 'Black master of ventriloquism,' cried I, 'hold thy tongue for God's sake; I see thee behind there and fire in.' I took it for ventriloquism. "Now for the first time the crazy-house properly began; I heard it laugh,--call me in and dub me a comrade and member of the club. '_Presses_,' said I, 'I am notoriously a man, and see thee quite distinctly.' It availed nothing; the waxen baldhead so much the more replied, 'Yes, there sits brother Schoppe already,' and I actually saw myself also embossed and modelled on the spot. 'He is to be had here also,' cried I, grimly, and fired away at the master of the lodge, who tumbled bleeding to the floor. "I made off with myself in the same hour. As to the uncle, I came across his track afterward for a short time. He dreads madmen, and would not have me long with him, for fear I myself should strike up a bargain with the aforesaid set. He asked me whether the director of the wax-figure travelling madhouse had encountered me. I could not place much confidence in him; I have the secret alone."