in too great a hurry
to deduce laws from individual cases. Many of his observations were, no
doubt, of considerable interest. . . . Here Rufinus broke in with some
vehemence, and the discussion would have become a dispute if Paula had
not intervened by requesting her zealous host to give her the results, at
any rate, of his studies.

"I find," said Rufinus very confidently, as he stroked down his long
beard, "that they are not merely shrewd because their faculties are early
sharpened to make up by mental qualifications for what they lack in
physical advantages; they are also witty, like AEesop the fabulist and
Besa the Egyptian god, who, as I have been told by our old friend Horus,
from whom we derive all our Egyptian lore, presided among those heathen
over festivity, jesting, and wit, and also over the toilet of women. This
shows the subtle observation of the ancients; for the hunchback whose
body is bent, applies a crooked standard to things in general. His keen
insight often enables him to measure life as the majority of men do, that
is by a straight rule; but in some happy moments when he yields to
natural impulse he makes the straight crooked and the crooked straight;
and this gives rise to wit, which only consists in looking at things
obliquely and--setting them askew as it were. You have only to talk to my
hump-backed gardener Gibbus, or listen to what he says. When he is
sitting with the rest of our people in an evening, they all laugh as soon
as he opens his mouth.--And why? Because his conformation makes him utter
nothing but paradoxes.--You know what they are?"

"Certainly."

"And you, Pul?"

"No, Father."

"You are too straight-nay, and so is your simple soul, to know what the
thing is! Well, listen then: It would be a paradox, for instance, if I
were to say to the Bishop as he marches past in procession: 'You are
godless out of sheer piety;' or if I were to say to Paula, by way of
excuse for all the flattery which I and your mother offered her just now:
'Our incense was nauseous for very sweetness.'--These paradoxes, when
examined, are truths in a crooked form, and so they best suit the
deformed. Do you understand?"

"Certainly," said Paula.

"And you, Pul?"

"I am not quite sure. I should be better pleased to be simply told: 'We
ought not to have made such flattering speeches; they may vex a young
girl.'"

"Very good, my straightforward child," laughed her father. "But look,
there is the man!