“Défense d’entrer!” it snapped out suddenly, and shut its mouth like a gin.
“Oh, monsieur!” said I, “no going out, rather, for the mouse in the trap.”
He lifted one of his arms at right angles to his body, and let it drop again to his side.
“Behold!” he cried, “the peril! Hadst thou been closer thy head had fallen!”
“But thine,” said I. “Hast thou not already lost it?”
“Oh, early in the struggle, monsieur! Oh, very early! And then my soul passed into the inanimate instrument of death and made it animate.”
“What! thou art the guillotine itself?”
“Look at me, then! Is it not obvious that I am that infernal engine, nor less that I am informed with the ego that once was my victim and is now my familiar—being myself, in effect?”
“Pardieu! this is worse than the game of ‘Proverbs.’ It rests with thy ego, then, to put a period to this orgy of blood.”
He gave forth a loud wailing cry.