strangers with a look of absurd sagacity. 'I know it; without a
doubt I know it; all Alexandria has good reason to know it. Are you
a monk?'

'Yes.'

'Then ask your way of the monks; you won't go far without finding
one.'

'But I do not even know the right direction; what is your grudge
against monks, my good man?'

'Look here, my youth; you seem too ingenuous for a monk. Don't
flatter yourself that it will last. If you can wear the sheepskin,
and haunt the churches here for a month, without learning to lie,
and slander, and clap, and hoot, and perhaps play your part in a
sedition--and--murder satyric drama--why, you are a better man than
I take you for. I, sir, am a Greek and a philosopher; though the
whirlpool of matter may have, and indeed has, involved my ethereal
spark in the body of a porter. Therefore, youth,' continued the
little man, starting up upon his baulk like an excited monkey, and
stretching out one oratorio paw, 'I bear a treble hatred to the
monkish tribe. First, as a man and a husband; .... for as for the
smiles of beauty, or otherwise,--such as I have, I have; and the
monks, if they had their wicked will, would leave neither men nor
women in the world. Sir, they would exterminate the human race in a
single generation, by a voluntary suicide! Secondly, as a porter;
for if all men turned monks, nobody would be idle, and the
profession of portering would be annihilated. Thirdly, sir, as a
philosopher; for as the false coin is odious to the true, so is the