innocent and thoughtless pleasantry. I am a man of family; and my wife
and little ones--List to reason, good your worship: what wouldst thou
of me?"

"Only that thou be blind and dumb and paralytic whilst one may count a
hundred thousand--counting slowly," said Hendon, with the expression of a
man who asks but a reasonable favour, and that a very little one.

"It is my destruction!" said the constable despairingly. "Ah, be
reasonable, good sir; only look at this matter, on all its sides, and see
how mere a jest it is--how manifestly and how plainly it is so. And even
if one granted it were not a jest, it is a fault so small that e'en the
grimmest penalty it could call forth would be but a rebuke and warning
from the judge's lips."

Hendon replied with a solemnity which chilled the air about him--

"This jest of thine hath a name, in law,--wot you what it is?"

"I knew it not! Peradventure I have been unwise. I never dreamed it had
a name--ah, sweet heaven, I thought it was original."

"Yes, it hath a name. In the law this crime is called Non compos mentis
lex talionis sic transit gloria mundi."

"Ah, my God!"

"And the penalty is death!"

"God be merciful to me a sinner!"