what seemed a sort of accident to the apex of this, he beheld
something which made him quite misdoubt the evidence of his eyes.

He saw the extinguisher lifted by a tiny hand, from beneath, and a
small human face, no bigger than a thumb-nail, with nicely
proportioned features, peep from beneath it. In this Lilliputian
countenance was such a ghastly consternation as horrified my uncle
unspeakably. Out came a little foot then and there, and a pair of wee
legs, in short silk stockings and buckled shoes, then the rest of the
figure; and, with the arms holding about the socket, the little legs
stretched and stretched, hanging about the stem of the candlestick
till the feet reached the base, and so down the satyr-like leg of the
table, till they reached the floor, extending elastically, and
strangely enlarging in all proportions as they approached the ground,
where the feet and buckles were those of a well-shaped, full grown
man, and the figure tapering upward until it dwindled to its original
fairy dimensions at the top, like an object seen in some strangely
curved mirror.

Standing upon the floor he expanded, my amazed uncle could not tell
how, into his proper proportions; and stood pretty nearly in profile
at the bedside, a handsome and elegantly shaped young man, in a bygone
military costume, with a small laced, three-cocked hat and plume on
his head, but looking like a man going to be hanged--in unspeakable
despair.

He stepped lightly to the hearth, and turned for a few seconds very
dejectedly with his back toward the bed and the mantel-piece, and he
saw the hilt of his rapier glittering in the firelight; and then
walking across the room he placed himself at the dressing-table,