The tenth and last lamp indicated the
presence of one more guest who reclined a little apart from the rest.
This man was hump-backed; his gaunt, bony features were repulsively
disproportioned to his puny frame, which looked doubly contemptible,
enveloped as it was in an ample tawdry robe. Sprung from the lowest
ranks of the populace, he had gradually forced himself into the favour
of his superiors by his skill in coarse mimicry, and his readiness in
ministering to the worst vices of all who would employ him. Having lost
the greater part of his patrons during the siege, finding himself
abandoned to starvation on all sides, he had now, as a last resource,
obtained permission to participate in the Banquet of Famine, to enliven
it by a final exhibition of his buffoonery, and to die with his masters,
as he had lived with them--the slave, the parasite, and the imitator of
the lowest of their vices and the worst of their crimes.
At the commencement of the orgie, little was audible beyond the clash of
the wine-cups, the low occasional whispering of the revellers, and the
confused voices of the people without, floating through the window from
the street.
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