“By all means,” I replied, “the powers that be—you know the rest; well, in Grubbington I have got a lion and unicorn over the chancel arch. I have the utmost reverence for secular authority, and the blindest devotion to the Crown.” “Have you any of the sacred writings in your possession?” I felt in my numerous pockets; I had failed before in my endeavour to discover a certain publication of the Anglo-Continental Society, in my breast pocket, I now explored one of the receptacles in the tail of my coat. Yes! I came on a packet of the tracts of that society, in Latin. I handed them at once to the prefect, who ordered his secretary to take them. “And,” continued he, addressing the executioner, “look out your apparatus of torture, Maximus. Here is a man who seems to be neither fish, nor flesh, nor fowl: he should have some special cooking.” “My Lord, shall I roast him?” “No, good Maximus, roasting is out of fashion.” “Shall I boil him?” “That is common-place.” “Fry him, my Lord?” “No, let us have some novelty; monotony is tedious.” “The little horse, the red hot pincers, the thumb screws, the leaded whips, are all stale,” mused the executioner, biting his thumb-nails and looking dumped. Presently, however, a ray of light illumined his face: “My Lord!” he said, looking up cheerfully, “it is an ancient tradition in the family of my mother, who came from a remote island of the northern seas, called Hibernia, that two cats were once shut up in a chamber at Kilkennœa, and they fought and fought till they had eaten each other all but the tails. My Lord, the prisoner seems to regard the Roman Christians with an antipathy similar to that recorded of the Kilkennœan cats, and this antipathy I presume is reciprocated. Will it please your worship to order the confinement, in an iron cage, of the deacon Laurence with this Britannic mongrel Christian. I confidently anticipate great entertainment to your Lordship, and I am satisfied that if you will condescend to inspect the cage to-morrow morning, nothing of the several parties will be discovered except the _os sacrum_ of each, which your Lordship is well aware, takes that place in man which, in the inferior order of mammals, is occupied by the tail.” “Capital!” exclaimed the judge, “and whilst Maximus is looking up the cage, and whilst the soldiers go in search of the deacon Laurence, Servius, do you read the pernicious writings which the prisoner has delivered over to us, and which the Christians regard with reverence.”