"I must not let yon cavalier of plebeian race escape me. See, where he wades through the expecting throng with all the air of one of note. He has become immensely rich by force of calculation, and in his proud mansion has as many servants as your first grandee; his table would put to shame for delicacy and abundance that of a minister of state. He has a carriage for himself, one for his wife, and another for his children; and in his stables may be seen the best of mules and the most splendid horses in the world. Only yesterday, he bought, and paid for on the nail, a superb train of noble animals, that the prince of Spain had partially agreed for, but had thought too dear." "What insolence!" exclaimed Leandro. "A Turk, now, who beheld that lump of arrogance, poised on so dangerous a height, would watch each instant for its sudden fall." "I know nothing of the time to come," replied Asmodeus, "but think your Turk would not be far from right. "Ah! what is that I see?" continued the Demon with surprise. "Did I wonder at any thing, I should disbelieve my eyes. I absolutely discern within this room a poet--the last whom I should expect to see. How dares he come within these walls?--he who could write in terms offensive to their noblest visitants. He must count indeed on the contempt that he is held in! [Illustration: the chief magistrate and his page] "But mark particularly that venerable man who enters now, supported by a page. Observe with what respect the crowd divides to make way for him. That is the signor Don José de Reynaste e Ayala, chief magistrate of the police: he comes hither to inform the king of the events of last night in the capital. Methinks, signor Student, that we could assist him in his report! However, regard him with admiration, for he deserves it." "In truth," replied Zambullo, "he looks like a man of worth." "It would be well for Spain," replied the Cripple, "if all its corregidors would take him for their model. He has none of that intemperate zeal which urges those who should administer the law to violate its spirit from impetuosity or caprice; and he respects too much the sacred freedom of the person to deprive the meanest of his fellow-subjects of that blessed right on the mere information of an alguazil, a clerk, or even a secretary of police. He knows those gentlemen too well; and that, for the most of them, their venal souls will scruple not to traffic on the fund of his authority. When a man stands before him, accused of crime, he may be sure that justice will be done towards him; the evidence is sifted until truth is discovered; and thus the prisons, instead of echoing the sighs of innocence, perform their proper office of holding the guilty. Even these are not abandoned to the licence which ordinarily reigns in gaols. He visits, as a man, those whom, as a magistrate, he has condemned, and is careful that inhumanity, in its dispensers, shall not add rigour to the law."