methinks none will go to bed early, seeing there is so full a list
of amusements!"

He paused again, somewhat out of breath,--and Sah-luma meanwhile
unrolled the linen scroll he had purchased, which measured about
twenty-four inches in length and twenty in width. Carefully ruled
black and red lines divided it into nearly the same number of
columns as those on the page of an ordinary newspaper, and it was
covered with close writing, here and there embellished by bold,
profusely ornamented headings. One of these, "Death of the
Sculptor, Nir-jalis," seemed to burn into Theos's brain like
letters of fire,--how was it, he wondered, that the body of that
unfortunate victim had been found on the shore of the river, when
he himself had seen it loaded with iron weights, and cast into the
lake that formed part of Lysia's fatal garden? Presently Sah-luma
passed the scroll to him with a smile, saying lightly:

"There, my friend, is a specimen of the true mob-literature! ...
written to-day, forgotten to-morrow! 'Tis a droll thing to
meditate upon, the ephemeral nature of all this pouring-out of
unnecessary words and stale stock-phrases!--and, wouldst thou
believe it, Theos! each little paid scribe that adds his poor
quota to this ill-assorted trash deems himself wiser and greater
far than any poet or philosopher dead or living! Why, in this very
news-sheet I have seen the immortal works of the divine Hyspiros
so hacked by the blunt knives of ignorant and vulgar criticism
that, by my faith! ... were it not for contempt, one would be
disposed to nail the hands of such trumpery scribblers to a post,
and scourge their bare backs with thorny rods to cure them of
their insolence! Nay, even my fool Zabastes hath found place in