"What?" asked Paul, observing his comrade did not conclude the sentence.

It was some time before the sage Augustus replied; he then said in a
musing tone,--

"I have been thinking, Paul, whether it would be consistent with virtue,
and that strict code of morals by which all my actions are regulated,
to--slay the watchman!"

"Good heavens!" cried Paul, horror-stricken.

"And I have decided," continued Augustus, solemnly, without regard to the
exclamation, "that the action would be perfectly justifiable!"

"Villain!" exclaimed Paul, recoiling to the other end of the stone box--
for it was night--in which they were cooped.

"But," pursued Augustus, who seemed soliloquizing, and whose voice,
sounding calm and thoughtful, like Young's in the famous monologue in
"Hamlet," denoted that he heeded not the uncourteous interruption,--"but
opinion does not always influence conduct; and although it may be
virtuous to murder the watchman, I have not the heart to do it. I trust
in my future history I shall not by discerning moralists be too severely
censured for a weakness for which my physical temperament is alone to
blame!"

Despite the turn of the soliloquy, it was a long time before Paul could
be reconciled to further conversation with Augustus; and it was only from
the belief that the moralist had leaned to the jesting vein that he at
length resumed the consultation.