We are nearly all zealous Catholics here, and he sells to our wives such cheap and edifying little books, with chaplets and amulets of the best manufacture, at less than the prime cost.

All this, you will say, has nothing to do with the affair; and you will be right in saying so: still I must needs confess that I came here with the intention--" "Of deciding against me, eh, Mr.Burgomaster ?" said Dagobert, gaining more and more confidence.

"You see, you were not quite awake, and your justice had only one eye open." "Really, master soldier," answered the judge with good humor, "it is not unlikely; for I did not conceal from Morok that I gave it in his favor.
Then he said to me (very generously, by the way): 'Since you condemn my adversary, I will not aggravate his position by telling you certain things--'" "What! against me ?" "Apparently so; but, like a generous enemy, when I told him that I should most likely condemn you to pay him damages, he said no more about it.

For I will not hide from you, that, before I heard your reasons, I fully intended that you should make compensation for the Prophet's wound." "See, Mr.Burgomaster, how the most just and able persons are subject to be deceived," said Dagobert, becoming once more the courtier; then, trying to assume a prodigiously knowing look, he added: "But such persons find out the truth at last, and are not to be made dupes of, whatever prophets may say." This poor attempt at a jest--the first and only one, perhaps, that Dagobert had ever been guilty of--will show the extremity to which he was reduced, and the desperate efforts of all kinds he was making to conciliate the good graces of his judge.

The burgomaster did not at first see the pleasantry; he was only led to perceive it by the self satisfied mien of Dagobert, and by his inquiring glance, which seemed to say: "Is it not good, eh ?--I am astonished at it myself." The magistrate began, therefore, to smile with a patronizing air, and, nodding his head, replied in the same jocular spirit: "Ha! Ha! Ha! You are right; the Prophet is out in his prophecy.