I think I know partly how this unfortunate and unhealthy state of mind began with me: this painful habit of seeing something extraordinary and terrible in the most simple matters, and of peopling the house with unearthly and mischievous beings. I think it came about in this way:—

When I was quite little, I used often to be given in charge to my father’s orderly. He was a brave and honest fellow, and very fond of me. His name was Montamat, but everyone called him MontÉzuma. Unfortunately for me he possessed far more imagination than judgment.

Whenever I was naughty or unreasonable, he would call for Croquemitaine; and as he was a ventriloquist you may suppose it was not long before a conversation commenced with this extraordinary person, who used to reply to the questions asked of him from the dark, mysterious, and fearful regions of the kitchen chimney sometimes; or sometimes from the bottom of my porridge bowl, or again sometimes from the inside of a drawer in the table close to where my little chair was placed. As I believed most implicitly in Croquemitaine’s existence, MontÉzuma made me do exactly as he liked by this means. Just fancy! here was a man who appeared to me to be on the most intimate terms with a mysterious and supernatural being! A man who could summon this being at will, and, at a single word, send him off again about his business, just at the moment when, almost mad with anguish, I feared, yet longed, to see the mysterious being appear to me.

Our discussions would always end in the same way when I had been naughty.

“Now will you do it again?” MontÉzuma would ask in a stern voice.

“Oh, no! no! my good MontÉzuma,” I would cry, “I will never, never do so any more.”

“Then, Croquemitaine,”—MontÉzuma would say in a gentle voice,—“you can go away, we will not give you our little Paul to-day; for he has promised to be a good boy.”