e queer
customers." At which Mr. Mafferton frowned portentously. But nothing
seemed to have any effect on Brother Eusebius.

"There are such a lot of you, and you are sure to be so inquisitive,
that we'll both go with you," said he, and took candles from a shelf.
Not ordinary candles at all--coils of long, slender strips, with one end
turned up to burn. At the sight of them momma shuddered and said she
hadn't thought it would be dark, and took the Senator's arm as a
precautionary measure. Then we followed the monks Eusebius and
Demetrius, who wrapped shawls round their sloping shoulders and hurried
across the grass towards the little brick entrance to the Catacombs,
shading their candles from the wind that twisted their brown gowns round
their legs, with all the anxiety to get it over shown by janitors of
buildings of this world.

CHAPTER XIV.

At first through the square chambers of the early Popes and the narrow
passages lined with empty cells, nearest to the world outside, we kept
together, and it was mainly Eusebius who discoursed of the building of
the Catacombs, which he informed us had a pagan beginning.

"But our blessed early bishops said, 'Why should the devil have all the
accommodations?' and when once the Church got its foot in there wasn't
much room for _him_. But a few pagans there are here to this day in
better company than they ever kept above ground," remarked Brother
Eusebius.

"Can you tell them apart?" asked Mr. Dod, "the Christians and the
Pagans?"

"Yes," replied that holy man, "by the measurements of the jaw-bone. The
Christians, you see, were always lecturing the other fellows, so their
jaw-bones grew to an awful size. Some of 'em are simply parliamentary."

"Dat," said Brother Demetrius anxiously--as nobody had laughed--"ith a
joke."

"I noticed the intention," said poppa. "It's down in the guide-book
that you've been 'absolved from the vow of silence'--is that correct?"

"Right you are," said Brother Eusebius. "What about it?"

"Oh, nothing--only it explains a good deal. I guess you enjoy it, don't
you?"

But Brother Eusebius was bending over a cell in better preservation than
most of them, and was illuminating with his candle the bones of the
dweller in it. The light flickered on the skull of the Early Christian
and the tonsure of the modern one and made comparisons. It also cut the
darkness into solid blocks, and showed us broken bits of marble, faint
stains of old fres