Stuff You Should Know - SYSK’s 2018 Super Spooktacular

Episode Date: October 30, 2018

It’s Halloween again and Chuck and Josh want to creep you out. Listen to two great classic horror stories, dripping with Jeri’s creeptastic audio stylings. Guaranteed to put you in the holiday spirit. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, and welcome to the Spooky Halloween podcast. I'm, yeah, very nice. I'm Joshua Lantern Clark. There's Bride of Chucky Bryant, and there's Gerrifying Rowland. Jerry said she has no time for us this year, so we have to make all our own sound effects with our own mouths. That sounds good. That's cool.

We can do that. Watch this. That was terrifying. Wasn't it? Yeah. All the spit, I think, is what made it so terrifying. So Chuck, this is our annual Halloween episode. I don't know if anyone told you this yet.

Our Spooktacular. Yes, it's right. And for those of you who've just found the podcast recently, and this is your first time, every Christmas in Halloween, we present an ad-free episode for your enjoyment. This has nothing to do with explaining anything. It's just some spooky stories that we like to read, and then Jerry adds a little sound design, but apparently this year it's up to us. That's right.

So do you want to do it? Let's do it. Okay. So I say that we start with my pick, the Algernon Blackwood story, Ancient Lights. Great. Dim the lights, everybody. Get whatever you do to get into the spooky mood. I don't know how you play it in your houses, but dim the lights.

What do you do? Maybe get a cat, let it stare at you for a little while. It's pretty creepy. That's the sweetest thing ever. Cat staring at you? Sure. Sure. Maybe take your witch's broom out of the closet.

Oh, yeah. That'll set a mood. Put up your cobwebs. Don't clean those out. Put them up. Yeah. What are you doing? Cleaning them out.

You need spiders to keep pesky bugs away. That's right. And then you keep lizards to eat the spiders. That's right. See, you did learn something today. I did. Okay. You ready?

Yes. Allow me to start? Please. Okay. Jerry, if you please. Thank you, Jerry. Jerry's already asleep. This is Ancient Lights by Elgin and Blackwood.

From Southwater, where he left the train, the road led due west. That he knew. For the rest, he trusted to luck, being one of those born walkers who dislikes asking the way. He had that instinct, and as a rule, it served him well. A mile or so due west along the sandy road till you come to a style on the right, then across the fields, you'll see the red house straight before you. He glanced at the postcard's instructions once again.

And once again, he tried to decipher the scratched out sentence without success. It had been so elaborately inked over that no word was legible. Inked out sentences in a letter were always enticing. He wondered what it was that had to be so very carefully obliterated. The afternoon was boisterous with a tearing, shouting wind that blew from the sea across the Sussex Weald. No idea what a weald is. No idea.

Massive clouds with the browned, piled up edges, canoned across gaping spaces of blue sky. Far away, the line of downs swept the horizon like an arriving wave, Chanktonbury Ring, which I looked up. It's an old hill fort from like 2,500 years ago, and a Celtic temple. Okay? Bear that in mind. Okay.

So this old hill fort, he's saying, rode the crest of the horizon like a wave, okay? Yeah. A scutting ship, hold down before the wind. He took his hat off and walked rapidly, breathing great drafts of air with delight and exhilaration. This guy really liked walking. Yeah, man. He's the opposite of me. This would be Chuck and a segue this whole time, right?

Yeah. The road was deserted. No horsemen, bicycles, or motors, not even a tradesman's cart. No single walker, but anyhow, he would never have asked the way, keeping a sharp eye for the style. And by the way, Chuck, his style is like a little thing that humans can use to get over like a cattle fence, but like cattle can't get through. So like maybe steps on either side of a fence is his style, okay?

Stupid cows. I know, can't walk up steps. Keeping a sharp eye for the style, he pounded along while the wind tossed the cloak against his face and made waves across the blue puddles in the yellow road. The trees showed their underleaves of white. The bracken and the high new grass bent all one way. Great life was in the day, high spirits and dancing everywhere. And for a Croydon Surveyor's Clerk just out of an office, this was like a holiday at the

sea. It was a day for high adventure, and his heart rose up to meet the mood of nature. His umbrella with the silver ring ought to have been a sword, and his brown shoes should have been top boots with spurs on the heels. Where hid the enchanted castle and the princess with the hair of sunny gold? His horse, the style suddenly came into view and nipped adventure in the bud. Every day clothes took him prisoner again. He was a Surveyor's Clerk, middle aged, earning three pounds a week, coming from Croydon to

see about a client's proposed alterations in a wood. Something to ensure a better view from the dining room window. Across the fields, perhaps a mile away, he saw the red house gleaming in the sunshine. And resting on the style a moment to get his breath, he noticed the copes of oak and horn beam on the right. Aha! He told himself. So that must be the wood he wants to cut down to improve the view.

I'll have a look at it. There were boards up, of course, but there was an inviting little path as well. I'm not a trespasser, he said. It's part of my business, this is. He scrambled awkwardly over the gate and entered the copes. A little round would bring him to the field again. My turn? Take it away, Chuckers.

All right. Here we go. Should we catch people up? What's this guy doing? He's walking a lot. He's walking. He's walking and he's going to meet a client who wants to cut down some woods and he thinks he's just now found the woods.

All right, great. But the moment he passed among the trees, the wind ceased shouting and a stillness dropped upon the world. So dense was the growth that the sunshine only came through in isolated patches. The air was close. He mopped his forehead, put his green felt hat on, but a low branch knocked it off again at once. And as he stooped, an elastic twig swung back and stung his face.

There were flowers along, sorry. There were flowers along both edges of the little path, glades open on either side, ferns curved about in damper corners and the smell of earth and foliage was rich and sweet. It was cooler here. What an enchanting little wood, he thought, turning down a small green glade where the sunshine flickered like silver wings. How it danced and fluttered and moved about. He put a dark blue flower in his buttonhole.

Whatever floats your boat, pal. Again his hat caught by an oak branch as he rose was knocked from his head, falling across his eyes. This guy's a mess. Yeah. And this time he did not put it on again, swinging his umbrella. He walked on with uncovered head, whistling rather loudly as he went, but the thickness of the trees hardly encouraged whistling.

And something of his gait and high spirit seemed to leave him. He suddenly found himself treading, circumspectly and with caution. The stillness in the wood was so peculiar. There was a rustle among the ferns and leaves and something shot across the path ten yards ahead, stopped abruptly, an instant with head cocked sideways to stare, then dived again beneath the underbrush with the speed of a shadow. He started like a frightened child, laughing the next second that a mere pheasant could have made him jump.

In the distance he heard wheels upon the road and wondered why the sound was pleasant. Good old Butch's cot, he said to himself, his accent changed, I guess. I like it. He's from Boston now? I'm not sure where he's from. The Bronx? Sure. Good old Butch's cot, he said to himself, then realized that he was going in the wrong direction

and had somehow got turned round, for the road should be behind him, not in front. Then he hurriedly took another narrow glade that lost itself in greenness to the right. That's my direction, of course, he said. Oh, he's so connery. I think so. All right. The trees has mixed me up a bit, it seems. Then found himself abruptly by the gate he had first climbed over.

He had merely made a circle. Weird. Surprise became almost discomforture then. It's a new one for me? Sure. The man dressed like a gamekeeper in browny green leaned against the gate, hitting his legs with a switch. I'm making for Mr. Lumley's farm, explained the walker.

This is his wood, I believe. Then stopped dead because it was no man at all, but merely an effect of light and shade and foliage. He stepped back to reconstruct the singular illusion, but the wind shook the branches roughly here on the edge of the wood, and the foliage refused to reconstruct the figure. The leaves all rustled strangely, and just then the sun went behind a cloud, making the whole wood look otherwise. Yet how the mine could be thus doubly deceived was indeed remarkable, for it almost seemed

to him the man had answered, spoken, or was this the shuffling noise the branches made, and had pointed with his switch to the notice board upon the nearest tree. The words rang on in his head, but of course he had imagined them. Oh, it's not his wood, it's ours. That is good stuff. And some village wit, moreover, had changed the lettering on the weather-beaten board for it read quite plainly, trespassers will be persecuted. Teenagers.

No skateboarding either. And while the astonished clerk read the words and chuckled, he said to himself, thinking what a tale he'd have to tell his wife and children later, the blooming wood has tried to chuck me out, but I'll go in again, why it's only a matter of a square acre at most. I'm bound to reach the fields on the other side if I keep straight on. He read the skies really all over the place, didn't he? I feel like he's kind of settled into a real weird accent, but I like it. He remembered his position in the office, he had a certain dignity to maintain on TV, sir.

So he's freaking out a little bit, like the woods are like playing tricks on him, it seems like. The misty is kicking in. For sure. He's like, I shouldn't have plucked that weird mushroom from that cow poop. Okay. The cloud passed from below the sun and light splashed suddenly in all manner of unlikely places.

The man went straight on. He felt a touch of puzzling confusion somewhere. This way the copes had of shifting from sunshine into shadow, doubtless troubled sight a little. To his relief at last, a new glade opened through the trees and disclosed the fields with the glimpse of the red house in the distance at the far end. But a little wicked gait that stood across the path had to first be climbed, and as he scrambled heavily over it, for it would not open, he got the astonishing feeling that it slid off sideways beneath his weight toward the wood.

Like the moving staircases at Harrods and Earl's Court, and I think he's talking about escalators. I think so. He began to glide off with him. It was quite horrible, and he made a violent effort to get down before it carried him into the trees. But his feet became entangled with the bars and umbrella so that he fell heavily upon the farther side.

Arms spread across the grass and nettles. Boots clutched between the first and second bars. Suddenly Benny Hill came around the corner. Maybe Jerry will add yakety sacks to that part. Oh, that'd be great. Sure would. He lay there a moment like a man crucified upside down, and while he struggled to get disentangled, feet, bars, and umbrella formed a regular net, he saw the little man in brownie

green go past him with extreme rapidity through the wood. The man was laughing. He passed across the glade some fifty yards away, and he was not alone this time. A companion like himself went with him. The clerk, now upon his feet again, watched them disappear into the gloom of green beyond. You want to take this quote? They're traps, not gamekeepers. He said to himself, half mortified, half angry, apparently half deranged.

But his heart was thumping dreadfully, and he dared not utter all his thought. He examined the wicked gate, convinced it was a trick gate somehow, then went hurriedly on again to stir beyond belief to see that the glade no longer opened into the fields, but curved away to the right. What in the world had happened to him? His sight was so utterly at fault. Again the sun flamed out abruptly and lit the floor of woods with pools of silver, and at the same moment a violent gust of wind passed shouting overhead.

Drops fell clattering everywhere upon the leaves, making a sharp pattering as of many footsteps. The whole cope shuddered and went moving. Chuck? Rain by George. Thought the clerk, and feeling for his umbrella, discovered he had lost it. He turned back to the gate and found it lying on the farther side. To his amazement, he saw the fields at the far end of the glade.

The red house too, a shine in the sunset. He laughed then, for, of course, in his struggles with the gate, he had somehow got turned around. Had fallen back instead of forwards. Climbing over, this time quite easily, he retraced his steps. The silver band he saw had been torn off of the umbrella. No doubt his foot, a nail or something, had caught in it and ripped it off. The clerk began to run. He felt extraordinarily dismayed.

But while he ran, the entire wood ran with him, round him, to and fro, trees shifting like living things, leaves folding and unfolding, trunks darting backwards and forwards, and branches disclosing enormous empty spaces then closing up again before he could look into them. There were footsteps everywhere and laughing, crying, voices, and crowds of figures gathering just behind his back till the glade he knew was thick with moving life. The wind in his ears, of course, produced the voices in the laughter, while the sun and clouds, plunging the copes alternately in shadow and bright dazzling light, created

the figures. But he did not like it, and when as fast as ever his sturdy legs could take him. He was frightened now. This was no story for his wife and children. He ran like the wind, but his feet made no sound upon the soft mossy turf. Oh boy, it's getting real, it's getting surreal. Then to his horror, he saw that the glade grew narrow, nettles and weeds stood thick across it.

It dwindled down into a tiny path, and twenty yards ahead, it stopped finally, and melted off among the trees. What the trick gate had failed to achieve, this twisting glade accomplished easily, carried him in bodily, among the dense and crowding trees. You want to take us home? Yeah, let's do it. It's getting freaky, Chuck. There was only one thing to do, turn sharply and dash back again, run headlong into the

life that followed at his back, followed so closely, too, that now it almost touched him pushing him in, and with reckless courage, that was what he did. It seemed a fearful thing to do, he turned with his sort of violent spring head down and shoulders forward, hand stretched before his face. He made the plunge, like a hunted creature he charged full tilt the other way, meeting the wind at now in his face. Good Lord, the glade behind him had closed up as well. There was no longer any path at all, turning round and round like an animal at bay.

He searched for an opening, a way of escape, searched frantically, breathlessly, terrified now in his bones, but fully surrounded him, branches blocked the way, the trees stood close and still, unshaken by a breath of wind, and the sun dipped that moment behind a great black cloud. The entire wood turned dark and silent, it watched him. This is not good. No, when the woods are watching you, that's bad news. It's worse than a cat.

That's like that Jody Foster movie from the 70s, the Watcher in the Woods. Was that Jody Foster? Yeah, so scary. Yeah, I remember that one. And Betty Davis, I think too. That's right, we should have just played that instead of doing this. I feel like we just broke all the tension we'd built over the last 10 minutes. Okay, here we go everyone.

The woods are watching. Perhaps it was this final touch of sudden blackness that made him act so foolishly, as though he had really lost his head. At any rate, without pausing to think, he dashed headlong in among the trees again. There was a sensation of being stiflingly surrounded and entangled, and that he must break out at all cost, out and away into the open of the blessed fields and air. He did this ill-considered thing, and apparently charged straight into an oak that deliberately moved into his path to stop him.

He saw it shift across a good full yard, and being a measuring man accustomed to theodolite and chain, he ought to know. Do you know what that is? No, do you? The chain, I think, I mean, he's a surveyor, so it's got to have something to do with that, but who knows what theodolite is? I think it's a measuring compound. Sure.

He fell, saw stars, and felt a thousand tiny fingers tugging and pulling at his hands and neck and ankles. The stinging nettles, no doubt, were responsible for this. He thought of it later. At the moment, it felt diabolically calculated, but another remarkable illusion was not so easily explained. For all in a moment it seemed the entire wood went sliding past him with a thick, deep rustling of leaves and laughter, myriad footsteps, and tiny little active, energetic shapes.

Two men in browny green gave him a mighty hoist, and he opened his eyes to find himself lying in the meadow, beside the stile, where first his incredible adventure had begun. The wood stood in its usual place, and stared down upon him in the sunlight. There was the red house in the distance as before. Above him grinned the weather-beaten notice board. Trespassers will be prosecuted. To shoveled in mind and body, and a good deal shaken in his official soul, the clerk walked slowly across the fields, but on the way he glanced once more at the postcard of instructions,

and saw with dull amazement that the inked-out sentence was quite legible after all beneath the scratches made across it. There is a shortcut through the wood. The wood I want to cut down if you care to take it. Only care was so badly written, it looked more like another word. The C was uncommonly like D. It's the copes that spoils my view of the downs you see. His client explained to him later, pointing across the fields, and referring to the ordinance

map beside him. I want to cut down in a path made so and so. It's precise. His finger indicated direction on the map. The fairy wood, it's still called, and it's far older than this house. Come now if you're ready, Mr. Thomas. We might go out and have a look at it. Oh boy.

So basically the upshot, oh yeah, there you go, the end. So basically the upshot of this one, Chuck, is that this guy is very lucky that the possessed wood spit him out and didn't keep him in there forever, like that island did to Amelia Earhart. That's right, Ambrose Bierce, man, bring in the civil engineering horror. That was Elginon Blackwood. What did I say, Ambrose Bierce? That's a common mistake. It is.

I like Elginon Blackwood. Yeah. He's great. He did the empty house, which we read once a few years back. So there you go. How scared is everybody? Raise your hand if you're scared. Me.

That's not bad. Not bad. Two out of three people isn't bad. All right. So we're going to move on to Edgar Allen Poe. Because it's in the public domain. Dude, it's true. It is true.

It's in the public domain. I'm going to get started in my searching earlier next year. Yeah. Or we could just start saving up and just buy the rights to read one. Yeah. I mean, there are stories about getting in touch with the authors that are still living. Sure. It's like, I found a good Joyce Carol Oates one and she's alive.

All she writes is the best horror ever. Yeah. For my money, I would say that she's probably my favorite author in general, but I would say she's probably the greatest horror writer of all time too. Well, I'm going to get in touch with her. We're going to buddy up over the next year. Oh, good. Well, loop me into that.

Yeah. For sure. We're going to bring the Oates next year. Okay. Yeah. She's on Twitter. I tweeted to her once to ask her and she just ignored it. Oh, really?

Yeah. That was before your big shot. No. This was like last year. Yeah. I watched it. I guessed it. That's the whole truth.

So, yes, you're right. All right. Here we go with a story by Edgar Allan Poe, a noted drunk and drug addict. Died in the street. Really? Oh, yeah. I think I knew that. Baltimore, right in front of Power Station Live.

Wow. Yeah. Is there a marker? Yes. It's actually not right in front of it. It's like a street or so over and I don't remember if it's a house or if it is the place where he died. I think it is the spot where he died.

It's like a street or two over in Baltimore. Nice. Yeah. It's worth visiting for sure. All right. So, this is a Poe short story called Hop Frog, silly name, ghoulish content. Yes. You ready?

Do you want to start? You go ahead. No. I finished that one. Why don't you start this one? Oh, okay. Okay. I don't have my parts done either.

We'll just wing it. Okay. We'll just go kaka kaka or wink or something. I don't know. All right. You ready? Mm-hmm. I never knew anyone so keenly alive to a joke as the king was.

He seemed to live only for joking. To tell a good story of the joke kind and to tell it well was the surest road to his favor. Thus it happened that his seven ministers were all noted for their accomplishments as jokers. They all took after the king too in being large, corpulent, oily men, as well as inimitable jokers. Whether people grow fat by joking or whether there is something in fat itself which predisposes

to joke, I've never been quite able to determine. But certainly it is that a lean joker is a rarer avis in terrace. Had the heroin addict? About the refinement, or as he called them, the ghost of wit, the king troubled himself very little. He had an especial admiration for breadth and a jest and would often put up with length for the sake of it. Over niceties wearied him.

He would have preferred, man, this is going to make zero sense to anybody, but here we go. He would have preferred Rabelais gargantua to the Zadig of Voltaire. Of course. And upon the whole, practical jokes suited his taste far better than verbal ones. Let's get a bit of a picture of this king. Yeah, he's a pull my finger guy. Oh man, that's a good one.

At the date of my narrative, professing jesters had not altogether gone out of fashion at court. Several of the great continental powers still retain their fools, who wore motley with caps and bells, and who were expected to be always ready with sharp witticisms at a moment's notice, in consideration of the crumbs that fell from the royal table. Our king, as a matter of course, retained his fool. The fact is, he required something in the way of folly, if only to counterbalance the heavy wisdom of the seven wise men who were his ministers, not to mention himself.

His fool, or professional jester, was not only a fool, however. His value was trebled in the eyes of the king, by the fact of his also being a dwarf and a cripple. It's about here that I want to just apologize, on behalf of Edgar Allan Poe, for some of the descriptive terms that he uses throughout the short story, but please bear with him and us. Yes, what he meant to say was he was also a little person who was handicapable. That's right.

Nicely put. Yes. Again, sorry, dwarfs were as common at court in those days as fools, and many monarchs would have found it difficult to get through their days. These are rather long at court than elsewhere, without both a jester to laugh with and a dwarf to laugh at. But as I have already observed, your gestures in 99 cases out of 100 are fat, round, and unwieldy, so that it was no small source of self-gratulation with our king that in Hopfrog,

this was the fool's name, he possessed a triplicate treasure in one person. All right, me? Let's do it. All right. Hopfrog was not that given to the dorth by his sponsors of baptism. That's probably a good guess. I think that's a weird way to put parents. But it was conferred upon him by general consent of the several ministers on account

of his inability to walk as other men do. In fact, Hopfrog could only get along by a sort of interjectional gait, something between a leap and a wriggle, a movement that afforded, oh, man, that word, inimitable. I think he nailed it. Ilimitable amusement, and of course, consolation to the king for notwithstanding the protuberance of his stomach and a constitutional swelling of the head, the king by his whole court was accounted a capital figure. Edgar Allen Poe is super judgy.

Oh, yeah. He wasn't so great looking. I don't know, that's true. No, he wasn't, but he wasn't oily, I don't think. Okay. But although Hopfrog, through the distortion of his legs, could move only with great pain and difficulty along a road or floor, the prodigious muscular power, which nature seemed to have bestowed upon his arms by way of compensation for deficiency in the lower limbs, enabled

him to perform many feats of wonderful dexterity, where trees or ropes were in question or anything else to climb. At such exercises, he certainly much more resembled a squirrel or a small monkey than a frog. All right, so this guy, his legs don't work as well, but he's got super strong upper body. Is that right? That's what I'm getting.

Okay. And he's a great climber as a result. That's right. Here we go. I am not able to say with precision from what country Hopfrog originally came, it was from some barbarous region, however, that no person ever heard of, a vast distance from the court of our king, Hopfrog and a young girl, very little less dwarfish than himself, although of exquisite proportions and a marvelous dancer, had been forcibly carried off from their respective

homes in adjoining provinces and sent as presents to the king by one of his ever victorious generals. Boy, this is terrible. It's pretty dark, but I mean, again, we're talking Poe here. Yeah, that's right. And just wait. Just wait for it, everyone. Just wait.

Under these circumstances, it is not to be wondered that a close intimacy arose between the two little captives. Indeed, they soon became sworn friends. Hopfrog, who, although he made a great deal of sport, was by no means popular. Had it not in his power to render Trepeta many services, is that the lady, Trepeta? Yeah, that's the lady. But she, on account of her grace and exquisite beauty, although a dwarf. Don't forget.

Just completely unnecessary. Her grace and exquisite was universally admired and petted, so she possessed much influence and never failed to use it whenever she could for the benefit of Hopfrog, so she's still a good friend. I like that. Oh, yeah. And he to her, even though he didn't really have any power. That's right.

Which is surprising, because a lot of jesters were very powerful in the court. Yeah, that's true. Didn't we do one on jesters? I think so. Okay. All right. On some grand state occasion, and I forget what, the king determined to have a masquerade, and whenever a masquerade or anything of that kind occurred at our court, then the talents,

both of Hopfrog and Trepeta, were sure to be called into play. Hopfrog, in a special, was so inventive in the way of getting up pageants, suggesting novel characters and arranging costumes for masked balls that nothing could be done, it seems, without his assistance. So Hopfrog can throw a great party. He can't, and apparently so can Trepeta, too. All right. Let me, I'll do this one more.

Oh, oh, I see. The night appointed for the FET had arrived. A gorgeous hall had been fitted up under Trepeta's eye with every kind of device which could possibly give eclat to a masquerade. The whole court was in a fever of expectation, for costumes and characters might well be supposed that everybody had come to a decision on such points. Many had made up their minds as to what roles they should assume, a week or even a month in advance, and in fact, there was not a particle of indecision anywhere, except in the case

of the king and his seven ministers. Why they hesitated, I could never tell, unless they did it by way of a joke. Or probably they found it difficult on account of being so fat to make up their minds. At all events, time flew, and as a last resort, they sent for Trepeta and Hopfrog. Oh boy. All right, so the deal is they're throwing this big ball. Everyone's dressed up, everyone put a lot into it, except for the king's seven ministers and his seven ministers.

Right, right. So they sent for Trepeta and Hopfrog to say, what should we do, guys? We need some help here. Yeah. So, can I start again? Yes. Okay. When the two little friends obeyed the summons of the king, they found him sitting at his

wine with the seven members of his cabinet council. But the monarch appeared to be in very ill humor. He knew that Hopfrog was not fond of wine, for it excited the poor cripple almost to madness, and madness is no comfortable feeling. But the king loved his practical jokes and took pleasure in forcing Hopfrog to drink, and as the king called it, to be merry. And I just made air quotes, everybody. Come here, Hopfrog, said he as the jester, and his friend entered the room, swallow

this bumper to the health of your abs and friends, here Hopfrog sighed. And then let us have the benefit of your invention. We want characters, characters, man, something novel out of the way. We are wearied with this everlasting sameness. Come, drink, the wine will brighten your wits. How's that for a king? I mean, I'm no Chuck Bryant, but that's great, that's okay. Hopfrog endeavored, as usual, to get up a jest and reply to these advances from the

king. But the effort was too much. It happened to be the poor dwarf's birthday, and the command to drink to his absent friends, forced tears to his eyes. Many large, bitter drops fell into the goblet as he took it, humbly, from the hand of the tyrant. Ah-ha-ha, roared the latter, as the dwarf reluctantly drained the beaker. See what a glass of good wine can do while your eyes are shining already!

Poor fellow, his large eyes gleamed rather than shone, for the effect of wine on his excitable brain was not more powerful than instantaneous. He placed the goblet nervously on the table, and looked around upon the company with a half-insane stare. They all seemed highly amused at the success of the king's joke. You want me to keep going? Keep going. And now, to business, said the prime minister, a very fat man, yes, said the king.

Come lend us your assistance, characters, my fine fellow. We stand in need of characters, all of us, ha-ha-ha! And as this was seriously meant for a joke, his laugh was coarsed by the seven. Oh-ho-ho-ho. Nice. Hopfrog also laughed, he-he-he-he-he-he, although feebly and somewhat vacantly. I think he did that. Come, come, said the king impatiently, have you nothing to suggest?

I am endeavoring to think of something novel, replied the dwarf, abstractedly, for he was quite bewildered by the wine. I know, I know what that's about. Yeah, all right, go king. Oh, endeavoring. cried the tyrant fiercely. What do you mean by that? I perceive your sulky and one more wine, here, drink this.

And he poured out another goblet full and offered it to the cripple, who merely gazed at it, gasping for breath. Drink I say. shouted the monster. Or by the fiends. The dwarf hesitated, the king grew purple with rage, the courtier smirked, Trepeta pale as a corpse advanced to the monarch's seat, and falling on her knees before him implored him to spare her friend.

The tyrant regarded her, for some moments, in evident wonder at her audacity, he seemed quite at a loss what to do or say, how most becomingly to express his indignation. It lasts without uttering a syllable, he pushed her violently from him, and through the contents of the brimming goblet in her face. The poor girl got up best she could, and not even daring to sigh, resumed her position at the foot of the table. Man. I know.

It's hard out there for a court minster. There was a dead silence for about a half minute, during which the falling of a leaf, or of a feather, might have been heard. It was interrupted by a lobe at harsh and protracted grating sound which seemed to come out at once from every corner of the room. Wait, what are you making that noise for? Demanded the king. I'm doing Michael Scott doing his weird voice, I just realized.

That's great. Demanded the king, turning furiously to the dwarf. The latter seemed to have recovered in great measure from his intoxication. That was quick. And looking fixedly, but quietly into the tyrant's face, merely ejaculated, I, I, how could it have been me? The sound appeared to come from without. Observe one of the courtiers.

I fancy it was the parrot at the window, wetting his bill upon his cage wires. True. Replied the monarch, as if much relieved by the suggestion. But on the honor of a night, I could have sworn that it was the gritting of this vagabond's teeth. Hereupon the dwarf laughed. The king was too confirmed a joker to object to anyone's laughing and displayed a set of large powerful and very repulsive teeth.

Moreover, he avowed his perfect willingness to swallow as much wine as desired. The monarch was pacified and having drained another bumper with no very perceptible ill-effect, Hopfrog entered at once and was spirited into the plans for the masquerade. Take it away. Okay. Well, this is a Hopfrog quote, and then you've been nailing it. I cannot tell what the association of idea wore. Observed he very tranquilly, and as if he had never tasted wine in his life.

But just after your majesty had struck the girl and thrown the wine in her face, just after your majesty had done this, and while the parrot was making that odd noise out the window, there came into my mind a capital diversion, one of my own country frolics, often enacted among us at our masquerades, but here it will be new all together. Unfortunately, however, it requires a company of eight persons and war. Here we are. Guide the king, laughing at his acute discovery of the coincidence. Eight to a fraction, I and my seven ministers, come, what is the diversion?

We call it the eight chained orangutans, and it really is excellent sport of well-enacted war. We will enact it. Remark the king drawing himself up and lowering his eyelids. The beauty of the game lies in the fright it occasions among the women. Capital! Roared in chorus the monarch and his ministry. I will equip you as orangutans, proceeded the dwarf, leave all that to me.

The resemblance shall be so striking that the company of masqueraders will take you for a real beast, and, of course, they will be as much terrified as astonished bore. Oh, this is exquisite! Exclaimed the king. Hopfrog, I will make a man of your! I don't know what's going on with the king, but this is just how excited he is. He's speaking through me right now. It's very oily.

It's very interesting to see everyone. Josh's eyes roll back in his head every time he does it. The chains are for the purpose of increasing the confusion by their jangling. You are supposed to have escaped en masse from your keepers. Boy, he's really setting this up. Your majesty cannot conceive the effect produced at a masquerade by eight chained orangutans. Imagine to be real ones by most of the company, and rushing in with savage cries among the crowd of delicately and gorgeously-habited men and women.

The contrast is, ugh, inimitable. It must be! Had the king and the council arose hurriedly, as it was growing late, to put in execution the scheme of Hopfrog. All right, my turn? Your turn. His mode of equipping the party as orangutans was very simple, but effective enough for his purposes.

The animals in question had, at the epoch of my story, very rarely been seen in any part of the civilized world. And as the imitations made by the drawer force sufficiently beast-like and more than sufficiently hideous, their truthfulness to nature was thus thought to be secured. The king and his ministers were first encased in tight-fitting stocking net shirts and drawers, like, um, uh, what are those called? Onesies? Sure.

They were then saturated with tar. This is where it gets kind of painful, really. At this stage of the process, someone of the party suggested feathers, but the suggestion was at once overruled by the drawer, who soon convinced the Eight by ocular demonstration that the hair of such a brood as the orangutan was much more efficiently represented by flax. A thick coating of the latter was accordingly plastered upon the coating of tar. A long chain was now procured. First it was passed about the waist of the king and tied, then about another of the party

and also tied, then about all successively in the same manner. When this chaining arrangement was complete and the parties stood as far apart from each other as possible, they formed a circle. And to make all things appear natural, Hopfrog passed the residue of the chains in two diameters at right angles across the circle, after the fashion adopted at the present day by those who captured chimpanzees or other large apes in Borneo. The story just keeps on giving, doesn't it? Yeah, Poe just, he got weirdly specific there.

Yeah. Like happened that one time. Yeah. Should I keep going? Yeah, man. The grand saloon in which the masquerade was to take place was a circular room, very lofty, and receiving the light of the sun only through a single window at top. At night, the season for which the apartment was especially designed, it was illuminated

principally by a large chandelier, depending by a chain from the center of the skylight and lowered, or elevated, by means of a counterbalance as usual. But in order not to look unsightly, this ladder passed outside the cupola and over the roof. So you got that? I got it. Okay. The arrangement of the room had been left to Tripeta's superintendents, but in some particulars it seems she had been guided by the calmer judgment of her friend the dwarf.

At his suggestion it was that, on this occasion, the chandelier was removed. Its wax and drippings, which in weather so warm it was quite impossible to prevent, would have been seriously detrimental to the rich dresses of the guests, who, on account of the crowded state of the saloon, could not all be expected to keep from out at center, that is to say, from under the chandelier. Additional sconces were set in various parts of the hall. Out of the war, and a flambeau, emitting a sweet odor, was placed in the right hand of each of the karyatids, karyatids, karyatids, karyatids, what do you think it is?

Karyatids, karyatids. Oh, okay. There you go. That stood against the wall, some 50 or 60 altogether. So they got rid of this giant chandelier that hung from a chain in the center of the place where the mass grade ball was going to be held. And now, there's basically just a hole in the center of the roof where the chain that held up the chandelier would have been.

Yes, something tells me the king and his guys are in for a surprise. Yeah, I think you might be right. All right, I can take it away here. Please do. The eight orangutans taking hot frogs advice waited patiently until midnight, when the room was thoroughly filled with masqueraders before making their appearance. No sooner had the clock see striking, however, than they rushed or rather rolled in altogether for the impediments of their chains caused most of the party to fall and all to stumble

as they entered. The excitement among the masqueraders was prodigious and filled the heart of the king with glee. As had been anticipated, there were not a few of the guests who supposed the ferocious looking creatures to be beasts of some kind in reality, if not precisely orangutans. Many of the women swooned with a fright and had not the king taken the precaution to exclude all weapons from the saloon. His party might soon have expiated their frolic in their blood.

Wow. So they looked so much like orangutans, he feared he would have been killed. People are expiating their blood. As it was, a general rush was made for the doors, but the king had ordered them to be locked immediately upon his entrance and that the dwarf's suggestion, the keys had been deposited with him. While the tumult was at its height and each masquerader attentive only to his own safety, for in fact, it was much real danger from the pressure of the excited crowd.

The chain by which the chandelier ordinarily hung and which had been drawn up on its removal might have been seen very gradually to descend until its hooked extremity came within three feet of the floor. So there's a hubbub going on and no one notices this chains being lowered from the ceiling, right? It sounds like not a lot of chivalry either, just a lot of pushing and shoving in every person for themselves. Okay, here we go.

Soon after this, the king and his seven friends, having reeled about the hall in all directions, found themselves at length in its center and of course in immediate contact with the chain. While they were thus situated, the dwarf, who had followed noiselessly at their heels, inciting them to keep up the commotion, took hold of their own chain at the intersection of the two portions which crossed the circle diametrically and at right angles. Here with a rapidity of thought, he inserted the hook from which the chandelier had been want to depend, and in an instant, by some unseen agency, the chandelier chain was drawn so far upward as to take the hook out of reach and as an inevitable consequence to drag the

orangutans together in close connection and face to face. The masqueraders by this time had recovered, in some measure, from their alarm and beginning to regard the whole matter as a well-contrived pleasantry, set up a loud shout of laughter and predicament of the apes. "'Leave them to me,' now screamed Hopfrog, his shrill voice making itself easily heard through all the din. "'Leave them to me. I fancy I know them.

If I can only get a good look at them, I can soon tell who they are. "'Take us home.'" Oh, jeez, I was not expecting this. Here, scrambling over the heads of the crowd, he managed to get to the wall when seizing a flambeau, I think a torch, from one of the- Let's just say torchy sconce on the wall. Okay, he returned and as he went to the center of the room, leaping with the agility of a monkey upon the king's head, and thence clambered a few feet up the chain because

remember he's got that upper body strength, holding down the torch to examine the group of orangutans and still screaming, "'I shall soon find out who they are,' barked. And now, while the whole assembly, the apes included, were convulsed with laughter. The jester suddenly uttered a shrill whistle. When the chain flew violently up, for about thirty feet, dragging with it the dismayed and struggling orangutans and leaving them suspended in mid-air between the skylight and the floor, Hopfrog, clinging to the chain as it rose, still maintained his relative

position in respect to the eight maskers and still, as if nothing were the matter, continued to thrust his torch down toward them as though endeavoring to discover who they were. So thoroughly astonished was the whole company at this ascent that a dead silence of about a minute's duration ensued. It was broken by just such a low, harsh grating sound as had before attracted the attention of the king and his counselors when the former threw the wine in the face of Trepeta. But on the present occasion, there could be no question as to whence the sound issued. It came from the fang-like teeth of the dwarf who ground them and gnashed them as he foamed

at the mouth and glared with an expression of maniacal rage into the upturned countenances of the king and his seven companions, said at length the infuriated jester, Aha! I begin to see who these people are now. Here pretending to scrutinize the king more closely, he held the flambeau to the flaxen coat which enveloped him and which instantly burst into a sheet of vivid flambeau. In less than half a minute, the whole eight orangutans were blazing fiercely amid the shrieks of the multitude who gazed at them from below, horror-stricken and without the

power to render them the slightest assistance. At length the flames, suddenly increasing in virulence, forced the jester to climb higher up the chain to be out of their reach and, as he made this movement, the crowd sank again for a brief instant into silence. The dwarf seized his opportunity and once more he spoke. I now see distinctly, he said, what manner of people these masqueras are. They are a great king and his seven privy counsellors, a king who does not scruple to strike a defenseless girl and his seven counsellors who abet him in the outrage.

As for myself, I am simply hot-frog, the jester, and this is my last jest. He dropped the mic. Yeah, he did. He dropped the mic while the king was on fire. Owing to the high combustibility of both the flax and the tar to which it adhered, the dwarf had scarcely made an end of his brief speech before the work of vengeance was complete. The eight corpses swung in their chains, a-fetted, black and hideous and indistinguishable mass, and leave it to Poe, he hurled his torch at them, clambered leisurely to the ceiling,

and disappeared through the skylight. It is supposed that Tripeta, stationed on the roof of the saloon, had been the accomplice of her friend in his fiery revenge, and that together they affected their escape to their own country, for neither was seen again. What? Get him, hot-frog. He needs to name something hot-frog in honor of hot-frog in Tripeta. I agree, because boy, the king was a jerk.

He was cruel. Don't forget Oily. Oily, and he got his comeuppance. Yeah, I would say being burned alive is a comeuppance, for sure. As an orangutan, too. Yeah, to say the least. Insult to injury. Yep.

I want to say you got anything else, but that would imply that you have another short story up your sleeve. I do not. Well, that's it, everybody. We want to wish you all a safe and happy Halloween. Get scared, but not too scared. You know what I mean? Sure.

Like Algernon Blackwood scared. How about that? Agreed. And we will see you next time with our regular type of episode, but until then, so long. Happy Halloween, everybody.