But still worse.
Suspended by blue ribbons to the end of this fantastic machine,
there hung, by way of car, an enormous drab beaver bat, with a brim
superlatively broad, and a hemispherical crown with a black band and a
silver buckle. It is, however, somewhat remarkable that many
citizens of Rotterdam swore to having seen the same hat repeatedly
before; and indeed the whole assembly seemed to regard it with eyes of
familiarity; while the vrow Grettel Phaall, upon sight of it,
uttered an exclamation of joyful surprise, and declared it to be the
identical hat of her good man himself. Now this was a circumstance the
more to be observed, as Phaall, with three companions, had actually
disappeared from Rotterdam about five years before, in a very sudden
and unaccountable manner, and up to the date of this narrative all
attempts had failed of obtaining any intelligence concerning them
whatsoever. To be sure, some bones which were thought to be human,
mixed up with a quantity of odd-looking rubbish, had been lately
discovered in a retired situation to the east of Rotterdam, and some
people went so far as to imagine that in this spot a foul murder had
been committed, and that the sufferers were in all probability Hans
Phaall and his associates.
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