And here the Koshare chronicle returns on its track to record that able paper. "As a consistent Koshare," said Mr. Morehouse, to his eager listeners, "it behooves me to give--without that dry adherence to facts observed by the 'Gradgrind' historian--the charming melodramatic details of that romantic monarch's life and times afforded by the popular Munchausen-like data of the Spanish chroniclers, albeit they have in their entirety, all the fascination, and, sometimes, all the unbelievableness of a fairy tale. "The Aztec government," prefaced the Antiquary, "was an elective monarchy, the choice always restricted to the royal family. "The candidate usually preferred must have distinguished himself in war; though, if (as in the case of the last Montezuma) he was a member of the priesthood, the royal-born priest, no less than the warrior was, with the Aztec, available as an emperor. "When the nobles by whom Montezuma the Second was made monarch went to inform the candidate of the result of the election, they are said to have found him sweeping the court of the temple to which he had dedicated himself. It is further asserted that when they led him to the palace to proclaim him king, he demurred, declaring himself unworthy the honor conferred on him. It is a humiliating proof of the weakness of human nature in face of temptation, to find that, later, this pious king so far forswore his humility as to pose before his subjects as a god; that five or six hundred nobles in waiting were ordered to attend daily at his morning toilet, only daring to appear before him with bared feet. "It was not until, by a victorious campaign, he had obtained a sufficient number of captives to furnish victims for the bloody rites which Aztec superstition demanded to grace his inauguration, that--amidst that horrible pomp of human sacrifice which stained the civilization of his people--Montezuma was crowned. "The Mexican crown of that day is described as resembling a mitre in form, and curiously ornamented with gold, gems, and feathers. "The Aztec princes, especially towards the close of the dynasty, lived in a barbaric Oriental pomp, of which Montezuma was the most conspicuous example in the history of the nation. "Elevation, like wine, seems to have gone to the head of the second Montezuma.