heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy," I muttered. I could not make up my mind to go to rest immediately. In fact, I did not feel in the least sleepy. I busied myself in examining the room minutely to see if there were any trap-door or sliding panel; and, tapping all the walls, expected every moment to touch some spring and for some panel to fly back, discovering a secret staircase. I examined the bed and under the bed, but could discover nothing. The Baron's portrait hung over the mantelpiece. I lifted up the picture to see if there was any hole in the wall underneath, but there was nothing but good solid panel; nor could I in any part of the room discover anything suspicious. I partially undressed and seated myself in a large arm-chair in front of the Baron's portrait. I was extremely interested in the perusal of his features, and had no difficulty in believing all the atrocities attributed to the original. The more I gazed at it, the more it fascinated me. I could not take my eyes from it. Somehow or other the features seemed familiar to me; I fancied I had seen them somewhere. I tried to collect my thoughts. Where had I seen them before?

Suddenly I recollected a horrible criminal, who had murdered a whole family and committed other heinous atrocities, and had been executed a year or two before. I had to plead for him at the trial, but the evidence was so strong against him, that no earthly power could save him from the gibbet. The likeness between this wretch and the portrait before me was very remarkable. This, then, was the incarnation of deep crime. These are the features that mark a life given up to every sort of cruelty, licentiousness, and depravity. The physiognomy was peculiar, and never to be forgotten when once seen. The head was round as a bullet, the hair red, short and bristly, the moustache and peaked beard of the same hue; the eyes greenish, and obliquely set in the head, like those of a cat, with an expression of the most indescribable ferocity and malice. The eyebrows red and tufted, running up also in an oblique direction, one of them being considerably higher than the other. Between the brows was a deep line. The forehead was flat, and retired from the temples in two separate peaks, that appeared to run up nearly to the back of his head; the nose was at once hooked and flat, like the bill of a parrot; the mouth was wide; the lips thin and compressed, with unpleasant lines at the corners; the chin and jaw square and massive; the neck resembling that of a bull; the ears were unusually large, and stuck out at the sides; the complexion was florid, with two pouches under the eyes, which seemed to drag the eyes down and give them a bloodshot appearance. A deep line in the cheeks, extending from each wing of the nose to the corners of the mouth, gave to the countenance a look of cynical disdain, and completed a portrait at once characteristic and revolting. The costume was early Elizabethan, and the arms of the Baron, together with his name and his age—forty-six—when the portrait was taken, were depicted with the date in the corner of the picture. For a while I sat musing. "Fit spirit," I muttered, "to inhabit the form of a flea! Heartless, worthless, bloodthirsty." I gazed at the portrait with feelings of horror and disgust. The eyes seemed to answer my expression with a look of anger.

I was unable to judge of the merits of the picture as a work of art, being little versed in such matters; but of one thing I am certain, that the painter had endeavoured to imitate as truthfully as it lay in his power all the leading characteristics of the Baron's physiognomy without any attempt at flattery.

As I mused it grew late; it was now just upon midnight. I finished undressing and climbed into my bed, a high old-fashioned four-poster with heavy embroidered curtains. The Baron still scowled at me from the mantelpiece, but, without returning his gaze, I set to work diligently to search for the flea. I drew back the top sheet slowly until the whole bed was uncovered. I shook the blankets and counterpane and looked under the pillow, but all in vain, not a glimpse of a flea was visible. It was a clean, well-aired bed, so, feeling now rather sleepy, I covered myself up with the bed-clothes and blew out the light, with every prospect of a good night's rest before me. But, alas! how soon was I undeceived. Hardly had I gone off into my first sleep, when I was suddenly awoke from a delicious dream with a sharp, sudden pang, like a stab or the tooth of some venomous reptile in the fleshy part of my thigh. I started up in horror, hardly able to restrain a slight shriek. The night was dark and stormy, the winds howled without, and the old mansion shook from its foundations. "The Phantom Flea!" I muttered, horrified, and reached out my hand for my tinder-box; but before I was able to strike a light, I experienced a second sharp stinging pain in the small of the back, then another in the calf of my leg. By this time I had succeeded in striking a light. Some scorpion, I thought. So, lighting my candle, I commenced a rigid search.

At length I caught sight of the vile insect. There it was, sure enough, a flea, and no mistake about it, but what a monster! It must have been the size of a coffee bean. What legs! How it hopped from one side of the bed to the other!

Well, gentlemen, I used my utmost endeavours to capture it; and here let me add that I am generally rather expert at that sort of game, having had some practice in my time; but, would you believe it, gentlemen, it foiled all my best endeavours, although I kept it in sight all the time. I was a full hour and a half engaged in this undignified chase. The "Phantom Flea" defied me to the last. What was I to do? I couldn't sit up all night hunting a flea, and yet to get any sleep with such a monster in the bed was equally impossible. Suddenly I recollected that I had a small bottle of opium in my waistcoat pocket, which I had purchased the day before to relieve a toothache that I had caught from sitting in the theatre at one end of a row of stalls, close to the door, which kept continually opening and shutting. I rose and searched for the bottle, and swallowed more, perhaps, than under ordinary circumstances would have been good for me, got into bed again, and blew out the light. The first sensation I experienced was that of a deliciously gradual dropping off to sleep, but the keenness of my senses was increased a hundred-fold. My memory and my imagination bordered on the abnormal. Every event in my life, from the cradle up to the present moment, rose before my mind in microscopic detail.

The room was dark; nevertheless, my eye, grown accustomed to the light, and sharpened by the effects of the opium, enabled me to discover every object in the room distinctly. There was the bed, the counterpane, every little tuft worked on it with painful distinctness. There was the texture of the sheets; every fibre of the blankets, and last, but not least, the "Phantom Flea" hopping about and around me, and biting me here and there at his pleasure. The opium in some measure relieved the severity of the bite, though the latter was still painful enough to prevent me from going off to sleep altogether. The sensation of delirium (for I can call it nothing else) caused by the opium seemed to increase. The room appeared to grow lighter and lighter, till it seemed to glow with a phosphoric glare.

My sight, hearing, and other senses grew rapidly more and more acute. Everything around me seemed to swell and dilate into proportions positively enormous. I felt myself grow larger, the bed grew larger, the room grew larger, the picture grew larger, and the flea grew larger. Larger and larger swelled the bed; larger, larger, and ever larger grew the flea,