Biped

This knave, […] shoes horses better than e'er a man betwixt us and Iceland; and so he gives up his practice on the bipeds, the two-legged and unfledged species, called mankind, and betakes him entirely to shoeing of horses.

He was badgered in that witness-box for an hour. By a distracting repetition of cross-examination he was forced to confess that he had seen and spoken to a human biped in broad daylight, yet could not recollect one singularity to distinguish this phantom from the flat mass of humanity.

Luján, or, rather, the biped which used to be Luján, walks right up to him. He is a little shorter than Wheeler, but much heavier-set. Rooted to the spot, not thinking clearly, Wheeler holds his violin up, as if this will shield him. The conductor takes the instrument from his unresisting hands and breaks its neck underfoot, perfunctorily, as if crushing a box for recycling.