ng: 'Mi fili, ego te nunquam
deseram.'"

"I read the words."

"An iron grating was placed before the picture, and covered the whole
niche, that infamous hands might not be able to touch it."

"A very wise idea."

"One morning following a very stormy night, to the astonishment of all,
the Latin inscription had disappeared from the picture, and in its place
there stood: 'Soon thou wilt pass from before me, thou old hypocrite!'"

"I can't help it, if the person in question changed his views."

"Why, certainly you can help it. The painter who prepared that picture,
upon being cross-questioned, confessed and publicly affirmed that, in
consideration of a certain sum of money paid by you, he had painted the
latter inscription in oils, and over it, in water-colours, the former:
so that the first shower washed off the upper surface from the picture,
making the honest, zealous fellow an object of ridicule and contempt in
his own house. Do you believe, sir, that such practical jokes are not
punished by the hand of justice?"

"I am not in the habit of believing much."

"Among other things, however, you are bound to believe that justice will
condemn you, first to pay a fine for blackmail; secondly, to pay for the
repairs your tricks have made necessary."

"I don't see an atom of plaintiff's counsel here."

"Because plaintiff left the amount due him to the pleasure of the Court,
to be devoted to charitable purposes."

"Good: then please break into the granaries."

"That we shall not do," interrupted the lawyer: "later on we shall take
it out of the 'regalia.'"

Topandy laughed.

"My dear, good magistrate. Do you believe all that is in the Bible?"

"I am a true Christian."

"Then I appeal to your faith. In one place it stands that some invisible
hand wrote, in the room of some pagan king--Belshazzar, if the story be
true,--the following words,'Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.' If that hand could
write then, why could it not now have written that second saying? And if
it was the rain that washed away the righteous fellow's words, you must
accuse the rain, for the fault lies there."

"These are indeed very weighty counter-charges: and you might have
declared them all before the Court, to which you were summoned: you
might have appealed even to the septemvirate, but as you did not appear
then, you must bear the consequences of your obstinacy."

"Good; I shall pay the price," said Topandy laughing:--"But it was a
good joke