"When the two witnesses had left the magistrate, the woman said to the maiden: 'Do not you wonder at this noodle, who thinks us young enough to tell him our ages to a day? It is enough, surely, that they should be inscribed on the parish registers, without his poking them into his depositions, for the information of all the world. It would be delightful, truly, to hear recited in open court,--Madame Richard, aged sixty and so many years, and Mademoiselle Perinelle, aged forty-five, depose such and so forth. It is too absurd: I have taken care to suppress a good score of years; and you were wise enough to follow my example.' 'What do you mean by following your example?' cried the ancient damsel, with youthful indignation: 'I am extremely obliged to you; but I would have you to know that thirty-five years are the utmost I have seen.' 'Why! child,' replied the matron, with a malicious smile, 'you forget yourself: I was present at your birth--ah! what a time it is ago! And your poor father! I knew him well. But we must all die; and he was not young, either: it is nearly forty years since we buried him.' 'Oh! my father,' interrupted the virgin, hastily, irritated at the precision of the old dame's tender recollections,--'my father was so old when he married my mother, that she was not likely to have any children by him.' "I perceive in that house opposite," continued the Spirit, "two men, who are not over-burdened with sense. One is a youth of family, who can neither keep money in his pocket, nor do entirely without it: he has discovered, therefore, an excellent means of always having a supply. When he is in cash, he lays it out in books, and when his purse is empty, he sells them for the half of their cost. The other is a foreign artist, who seeks for patronage among the ladies as a portrait painter: he is clever, draws correctly, colours to perfection, and is extraordinarily successful in the likeness; but--he never flatters his originals, yet expects the women will flock to him. Sheer stupidity! _Inter stultos referatur._" "What?" cried the Scholar, "have you studied the classics?" "You ought hardly to be surprised at that," replied the Devil: "I speak fluently all your barbarous tongues--Hebrew, Greek, Persic, and Arabic. Nevertheless, I am not vain of my attainments; and that, at all events, is an advantage I have over your learned pedants.