the same cloth; cut from the same bread-fruit; drank
from the same calabash; wore each other's crowns; and often locking
arms with a charming frankness, paced up and down in their dominions,
discussing the prospect of the next harvest of heads.

In his old-fashioned way, having related all this, with many other
particulars, Mohi was interrupted by Babbalanja, who inquired how the
people of Diranda relished the games, and how they fancied being
coolly thinned out in that manner.

To which in substance the chronicler replied, that of the true object
of the games, they had not the faintest conception; but hammered away
at each other, and fought and died together, like jolly good fellows.

"Right again, immortal old Bardianna!" cried Babbalanja.

"And what has the sage to the point this time?" asked Media.

"Why, my lord, in his chapter on "Cracked Crowns," Bardianna, after
many profound ponderings, thus concludes: In this cracked sphere we
live in, then, cracked skulls would seem the inevitable allotments of
many. Nor will the splintering thereof cease, till this pugnacious
animal we treat of be deprived of his natural maces: videlicet, his
arms. And right well doth man love to bruise and batter all occiputs
in his vicinity."

"Seems to me, our old friend must have been on his stilts that time,"
interrupted Mohi.

"No, Braid-Beard. But by way of apologizing for the unusual rigidity
of his style in that chapter, he says in a note, that it was written
upon a straight-backed settle, when he was ill of a lumbago, and a
crick in the neck."

"That incorrigible Azzageddi again," said Media, "Proceed with your
quotation, Babbalanja."

"Where was I, Braid-Beard?"

"Battering occiputs at the last accounts," said Mohi.

"Ah, yes. And right well doth man love to bruise and batter all
occiputs in his vicinity; he but follows his instincts; he is but one
member of a fighting world. Spiders, vixens, and tigers all war with a
relish; and on every side is heard the howls of hyenas, the
throttlings of mastiffs, the din of belligerant beetles, the buzzing
warfare of the insect battalions: and the shrill cries of lady Tartars
rending their lords. And all this existeth of necessity. To war it is,
and other depopulators, that we are beholden for elbow-room in Mardi
and for all our parks an gardens, wherein we are wont to expatiate.
Come on, then, plague, war, famine and viragos! Come on, I say, for
who shall stay ye? Come on, and