child upon their knees he could repeat quite substantially.

A man committed an indignity to Jesus the pretended _Christ_, who, in
punishment, condemned him to linger on the earth until in the fulness
of time he should come again; and the man had gone on living through the
centuries. Both the father and grandfather affirmed the tale to be true;
they had known the unfortunate personally; yet more, they declared he
had been an intimate of the family, and had done its members through
generations friendlinesses without number; in consequence they had come
to consider him one of them in love. They had also said that to their
knowledge it was his custom to pray for death regularly as the days came
and went. He had repeatedly put himself in its way; yet curiously it
passed him by, until he at last reached a conviction he could not die.

Many years had gone since the stall-keeper last heard the tale, and
still more might have been counted since the man disappeared, going no
one knew whither.

But he was not dead! He was coming again! It was too strange to believe!
It could not be! Yet one thing was clear--whatever the messenger might
be, or presuming him a villain, whatever the lie he thought to make
profitable, appeal could be safely and cheaply made to the seal in the
cupboard. As a witness it, too, was deaf and dumb; on its face
nevertheless there was revelation and the truth.

Through the momentary numbness of his faculties so much the son of
Jahdai saw, and he did not wait. Signing the messenger to follow, he
passed into a closet forming part of the stall, and the two being alone,
he spoke in Greek.