Going into Society

"Society, taken in the lump, is all dwarfs (...) And when you've no more left to give, they'll laugh at you to your face." A man sets up a circus in a respectable neighbourhood and draws an audience, with the main attraction being a dwarf named Mr Chops. One day, Mr Chops wins the lottery and leaves. But life outside the circus is not as he imagined. Going into Society is a dark story about naivety, humiliation and the disappointing importance of money. It is believed that Vladimir Nabokov's short story The Potato Elf (1929) about a dwarf named Fred who works in a circus, was inspired by this classic Charles Dickens story.