I question whether you are capable of executing
it.' 'If he is not,' cried I, 'I am; and surely no man can have greater
motives to destroy him than myself: for, besides his disloyalty to my
prince, for whom I have so perfect a duty, I have private disobligations
to him. I have had fellows put over my head, to the great scandal of
the service in general, and to my own prejudice and disappointment
in particular.' I will not repeat you my whole speech; but, to be as
concise as possible, when we parted that evening the minister squeezed
me heartily by the hand, and with great commendation of my honesty and
assurances of his favor, he appointed me the next evening to come to
him alone; when, finding me, after a little more scrutiny, ready for his
purpose, he proposed to me to accuse Timasius of high treason, promising
me the highest rewards if I would undertake it. The consequence to him,
I suppose you know, was ruin; but what was it to me? Why, truly, when
I waited on Eutropius for the fulfilling his promises, received me
with great distance and coldness; and, on my dropping some hints of
my expectations from him, he affected not to understand me; saying
he thought impunity was the utmost I could hope for on discovering my
accomplice, whose offense was only greater than mine, as he was in
a higher station; and telling me he had great difficulty to obtain a
pardon for me from the emperor, which he said, he had struggled very
hardly for, as he had worked the discovery out of me. He turned away,
and addressed himself to another person.

"I was so incensed at this treatment, that I resolved revenge, and
should certainly have pursued it, had he not cautiously prevented me by
taking effectual means to despatch me soon after out of the world.

"You will, I believe, now think I had a second good chance for the
bottomless pit, and indeed Minos seemed inclined to tumble me in, till
he was informed of the revenge taken on me by Roderic, and my seven
years' subsequent servitude to the widow; which he thought sufficient to
make atonement for all the crimes a single life could admit of, and so
sent me back to try my fortune a third time."

CHAPTER XI

In which Julian relates his adventures in the character of
an avaricious Jew.

"The next character in which I was destined to appear in the flesh was
that of an avaricious Jew. I was born in Alexandria in Egypt. My name
was Balthazar. Nothing very remarkable happened t