On another occasion I had seated myself upon a wooden couch in one of the open spaces about the outskirts of the city, when an aged man chanced to pass by. Him I saluted with ceremonious politeness, on account of his years and the venerable dignity of his beard. Thereupon he approached near, and remarking affably that the afternoon was good (though, to use no subtle evasion, it was very evil), he congenially sat by my side and entered into familiar discourse. “They say that in your part of the world we old grandfathers are worshipped,” he said, after recounting to my ears all the most intimate details of his existence from his youth upwards; “now, might that be right?” “Truly,” I replied. “It is the unchanging foundation of our system of morality.” “Ay, ay,” he admitted pleasantly. “We are a long way behind them foreigners in everything. At the rate we’re going there won’t be any trade nor work nor religion left in this country in another twenty years. I often wish I had gone abroad when I was younger. And if I had chanced upon your parts I should be worshipped, eh?” and at the agreeable thought the aged man laughed in his throat with simple humour. “Assuredly,” I replied; “--after you were dead.” “Eh?” exclaimed the venerable person, checking the fountain of his mirth abruptly at the word. “Dead! not before? Doesn’t--doesn’t that seem a bit of a waste?” “Such has been the observance from the time of unrecorded antiquity,” I replied. “‘Obey parents, respect the old, loyally uphold the sovereign, and worship ancestors.’” “Well, well,” remarked the one beside me, “obedience and respect--that’s something nowadays. And you make them do it?” “Our laws are unflinching in their application,” I said. “No crime is held to be more detestable than disrespect of those to whom we owe our existence.” “Quite right,” he agreed, “it’s a pleasure to hear it. It must be a great country, yours; a country with a future, I should say. Now, about that youngest lad of my son Henry’s--the one that drops pet lizards down my neck, and threatened to put rat poison into his mother’s tea when she wouldn’t take him to the Military Turneyment; what would they do to him by your laws?” “If the assertion were well sustained by competent witnesses,” I replied, “it would probably be judged so execrable an offence, that a new punishment would have to be contrived. Failing that, he would certainly be wrapped round from head to foot in red-hot chains, and thus exposed to public derision.” “Ah, red-hot chains!” said the aged person, as though the words formed a pleasurable taste upon his palate. “The young beggar! Well, he’d deserve it.”