Bête-ni-Pié.
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Coat, nevertheless ;—I lift it by the collar, turn it about very cautiously—nothing ! Suddenly the child screams again ; and I perceive the head close to my hand ;—the execrable thing had been hiding in a perpendicular fold of the coat, which I drop only just in time to escape getting bitten. Immediately the centipede becomes invisible. Then I take the coat by one flap, and turn it over very quickly : just as quickly does the centipede pass over it in the inverse direction, and disappear under it again. I have had my first good look at him : he seems nearly a foot long,—has a greenish-yellow hue against the black cloth,—and pink legs, and a violet head ;—he is evidently young. . . . I turn the coat a second time : same disgusting manœuvre. Undulations of livid color flow over him as he lengthens and shortens ;—while running his shape is but half apparent; it is only as he makes a half pause in doubling round and under the coat that the panic of his legs becomes discernible. When he is fully exposed they move with invisible rapidity,—like a vibration;—you can see only a sort of pink haze extending about him,—something to which you would no more dare advance your finger than to the vapory halo edging a circular saw in motion. Twice more I turn and re-turn the coat with the same result ; — I observe that the centipede always runs towards my hand, until I withdraw it : he feints ! With a stick I uplift one portion of the coat after another ; and suddenly perceive him curved under a sleeve,—looking quite small !—how could he have seemed so large a moment ago ? . . . But before I can strike him he has flickered over the cloth again, and vanished ; and I discover that he has the power of magnifying himself—dilating the disgust of his shape at will : he invariably amplifies himself to face attack. . . . It seems very difficult to dislodge him ; he displays astonishing activity and cunning at finding wrinkles and