little fresh-water fish!"

"Wait a moment. And this is the most important thing of all. How did it
happen that the mortal wounds on the dead man's body were made with a
razor?"

"Oh, the treachery of Don Nicasio! My God! My God! Yes, your honor. Two
days before--no one can think of everything, no one can foresee
everything--he came to the shop and said to me, 'Neighbor, lend me a
razor; I have a corn that is troubling me.' He was so matter-of-fact
about it that I did not hesitate for an instant. I even warned him, 'Be
careful! you can't joke with corns! A little blood, and you may start a
cancer!' 'Don't borrow trouble, neighbor,' he answered."

"But the razor could not be found. You must have brought it away."

"I? Who would remember a little thing like that? I was more dead than
alive, your honor. Where are you trying to lead me, with your
questions? I tell you, I am innocent!"

"Do not deny so obstinately. A frank confession will help you far more
than to protest your innocence. The facts speak clearly enough. It is
well known how passion maddens the heart and the brain. A man in that
state is no longer himself."

"That is the truth, your honor! That wretched woman bewitched me! She
is sending me to the galleys! The more she said 'No, no, no!' the more
I felt myself going mad, from head to foot, as if she were pouring fire
over me, with her 'No, no, no!' But now--I do not want another man to
suffer in my place. Yes, I was the one, I was the one who killed him! I
was bewitched, your honor! I am willing to go to the galleys. But I am
coming back here, if I have the good luck to live through my term. Oh,
the justice of this world! To think that she goes scot free, the real
and only cause of all the harm! But I will see that she gets justice,
that I solemnly swear--with these two hands of mine, your honor! In
prison I shall think of nothing else. And if I come back and find her
alive--grown old and ugly, it makes no difference--she will have to pay
for it, she will have to make good! Ah, 'no, no, no!' But I will say,
'Yes, yes, yes!' And I will drain her last drop of blood, if I have to
end my days in the galleys. And the sooner, the better!"

LUCIUS APULEIUS

_The Adventure of the Three Robbers_

The great satire of Lucius Apuleius, the work through which his
name lives after the lapse of nearly eighteen centuries, is "The
Golden Ass," a romance from which the following passage has been