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The World's Greatest Books — Volume 01 — Fiction by Various
page 64 of 407 (15%)
"They were robbers," I cried, "robbers of the most desperate and vilest
character! I caught them breaking into the house of my friend Milo, your
esteemed fellowtownsman, oh, citizens of Hypata! There were three of
them--three great, rough, burly rascals, each more than a match for a
mere boy like myself. Yet I managed to kill them; and I think I deserve
praise at your hands, and not censure, for my public-spirited action."

Here I stopped, for I saw that all the vast multitude of people was
laughing at me. And what grieved me most was to see my kinswoman
Byrrhena and my host Milo among my mockers. The senior magistrate
ordered the wheel and other instruments of torture to be brought forth.

"I cannot believe a mere boy like this could have slain three great
strong men single-handed," he said. "He must have had accomplices, and
we must torture him until he reveals the names of his partners in this
most dastardly crime. But, first of all, let him look upon the bodies of
the men he has foully murdered. Perhaps that will melt his hard, savage
nature."

The lictors then led me to the bier, and forced me to uncover the
bodies. Ye gods! The corpses were merely three inflated wine-skins, and
I observed that they were cut in the very spots in which I thought I had
wounded the robbers. I had, indeed, invented a pleasantry for the
festival of the god of laughter! The townspeople laughed with the
inextinguishable laughter of the Olympian deities. They climbed up to
the roof to get a good look at me; they swarmed up the pillars; they
clung to the statues; they hung from the windows at the risk of their
lives; all shouting at me in wild jollity.

"Sir Lucius," the magistrate then said to me, "we are not ignorant of
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