the indictment!"

A little advocate in snuff-coloured clothes rose on little legs, and
commenced to read:

"Forasmuch as on the seventeenth night of August fifteen hundred years
since the Messiah's death, one Celestine, a maiden of this city, fell
into a cesspool in the Vita Publica, and while being quietly drowned, was
espied of the burgess Pardonix by the light of a lanthorn held by the old
man Cethru; and, forasmuch as, plunging in, the said Pardonix rescued
her, not without grave risk of life and the ruin, of his clothes, and
to-day lies ill of fever; and forasmuch as the old man Cethru was the
cause of these misfortunes to the burgess Pardonix, by reason of his
wandering lanthorn's showing the drowning maiden, the Watch do hereby
indict, accuse, and otherwise place charge upon this Cethru of
'Vagabondage without serious occupation.'

"And, forasmuch as on this same night the Watchman Filepo, made aware, by
the light of this said Cethru's lanthorn, of three sturdy footpads, went
to arrest them, and was set on by the rogues and well-nigh slain, the
Watch do hereby indict, accuse, and otherwise charge upon Cethru
complicity in this assault, by reasons, namely, first, that he discovered
the footpads to the Watchman and the Watchman to the footpads by the
light of his lanthorn; and, second, that, having thus discovered them, he
stood idly by and gave no assistance to the law.

"And, forasmuch as on this same night the wealthy burgess Pranzo, who,
having prepared a banquet, was standing in his doorway awaiting the
arrival of his guests, did see, by the light of the said Cethru's
lanthorn, a beggar woman and her children grovelling in the gutter for