When the teeming pile of freight, therefore, began so freely to bring
forth, and traveller after traveller left his wallet, there was no great
space found in which they could stretch their wearied limbs, or seek the
change they needed. But suffering is a good preparative for pleasure, and
there is no sweetner of liberty like previous confinement. Baptiste was no
sooner heard to snore, than the whole hummock of cargo was garnished with
upright bodies and stretching arms and legs, as mice are known to steal
from their holes during the slumbers of their mortal enemy, the cat.

The reader has been made sufficiently acquainted with the moral
composition of the Winkelried's living freight, in the opening chapter. As
it had undergone no other alteration than that produced by lassitude, he
is already prepared, therefore, to renew his communications with its
different members, all of whom were well disposed to show off in their
respective characters, the moment they were favored with an opportunity.
The mercurial Pippo, as he had been the most difficult to restrain during
the day, was the first to steal from his lair, now that the Argus-like
eyes of Baptiste permitted the freedom, and the exhilarating, coolness of
the sunset invited action. His success emboldened others, and, ere long,
the buffoon had an admiring audience around him, that was well-disposed to
laugh at his witticisms, and to applaud all his practical jokes. Gaining
courage as he proceeded, the buffoon gradually went from liberty to
liberty, until he was at length triumphantly established on what might be
termed an advanced spur of the mountain formed by the tubs of Nicklaus
Wagner, in the regular exercise of his art; while a crowd of amused and
gaping spectators clustered about him, peopling every eminence of the
height, and even invading the more privileged deck in their eagerness to
see and to admire.