In this way, one evening, the current of anecdotes and stories ran
upon mysterious personages that have figured at different times, and
filled the world with doubt and conjecture; such as the Wandering Jew,
the Man with the Iron Mask, who tormented the curiosity of all Europe;
the Invisible Girl, and last, though not least, the Pig-faced Lady.
At length, one of the company was called upon that had the most
unpromising physiognomy for a story teller, that ever I had seen. He
was a thin, pale, weazen-faced man, extremely nervous, that had sat at
one corner of the table, shrunk up, as it were, into himself, and
almost swallowed up in the cape of his coat, as a turtle in its shell.
The very demand seemed to throw him into a nervous agitation; yet he
did not refuse. He emerged his head out of his shell, made a few odd
grimaces and gesticulations, before he could get his muscles into
order, or his voice under command, and then offered to give some
account of a mysterious personage that he had recently encountered in
the course of his travels, and one whom he thought fully entitled to
being classed with the Man with the Iron Mask.
I was so much struck with his extraordinary narrative, that I have
written it out to the best of my recollection, for the amusement of
the reader.
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