"It has," said the Journalist, "been urged by realistic critics of our own fascinating historian--Prescott--that since he drew his historic data, with the exception of the military record of the Spaniards, from these unreliable sources, his history is little other than the merest romance. Plainly, the assertions of some of the chroniclers are scarce more worthy of credence than the equally fascinating adventures of Sinbad the Sailor, and the impossible stories of Baron Munchausen. 'Bernard Diaz'--that enigmatical personage from whom many of Prescott's data are drawn--tells us that the Aztecs actually fattened men and women in cages, like spring chickens, for their sacrifice, and asserts that at the dedication of one of their temples a procession of captives two miles long, and numbering seventy-two thousand persons, were led to sacrifice! By the way, it has, however, been latterly proved that the so-called sacrificial stone, now exhibited in the National Museum of Mexico, is not a relic of the Aztecs, but of the earlier Toltecs (who were not addicted to human sacrifice), and is as innocent of human blood as the Calendar Stone, referred to the same period. The critics of Diaz have detected in his account constant blunders in many important matters, and his glaring geographical errors would seem to prove that, though he claims to have been, all through the Conquest, the very shadow of Hernando Cortez, he has never even been in the country he describes!" "From what I have read of Bernald," said Leon, "I think we may finish him off with 'Betsy Prig's' very conclusive objection to Sairey Gamp's 'Mrs. Harris'--there ain't no sich person!" "Even so," exclaimed the Minister, "I, for one, agree with certain downright critics who contend that Diaz was a pure fabrication, a priestly scheme of the Roman Church to screen the cruel enormities of their agent, Cortez. Father Torquemada, another of Prescott's authorities, is thought to be scarcely more reliable. Las Casas, another of our historian authorities, whose history was, at the time, promptly suppressed by the all-powerful Inquisition, declares these Spanish histories of the Conquest to be 'wicked and false.'" "And yet, in spite of these strictures," contended Leon, "I, for one, still pin my faith to Prescott and his implicit honesty of purpose. He gave us, in his own learned and fascinating way, the narrative of these priestly chroniclers as he found it. If the chroniclers lied, why, so much the worse for the chroniclers." "Lying," complained the Grumbler, "is a malady most incident to historians;" and thereupon rose to open the parlor door for the gray-eyed school teacher, who just then bade the Koshare good-night, adding that she had already been too long away from her sister. And now the chairman announced the next paper in the Koshare course for the second Saturday in February, and the members, one and all, dispersed.