me!" concluded Lenny, with a burst of energy.

"You have not done wrong? Then," said the philosopher, drawing out his
pocket handkerchief with great composure, and spreading it on the
ground--"then I may sit beside you. I could only stoop pityingly over
sin, but can lie down on equal terms with misfortune."

Lenny Fairfield did not quite comprehend the words, but enough of their
general meaning was apparent to make him cast a grateful glance on the
Italian. Riccabocca resumed, as he adjusted the pocket-handkerchief, "I
have a right to your confidence, my child, for I have been afflicted in
my day; yet I too say with thee, 'I have not done wrong.' _Cospetto!_
(and here the Doctor seated himself deliberately, resting one arm on
the side column of the stocks, in familiar contact with the
captive's shoulder, while his eye wandered over the lovely scene
around)--_Cospetto!_ my prison, if they had caught me, would not have
had so fair a look-out as this. But, to be sure, it is all one: there
are no ugly loves, and no handsome prisons!"

With that sententious maxim, which, indeed, he uttered in his native
Italian, Riccabocca turned round, and renewed his soothing invitations
to confidence. A friend in need is a friend indeed, even if he come in
the guise of a Papist and wizard. All Lenny's ancient dislike to the
foreigner had gone, and he told him his little tale.

Dr. Riccabocca was much too shrewd a man not to see exactly the motives
which had induced Mr. Stirn to incarcerate his agent, (barring only that
of personal grudge, to which Lenny's account gave him no clue.) That a
man high in office should make a scape-goat of his own watch-dog for an
unlucky snap, or even an indiscreet bark, was nothing strange to the
wisdom of the student of Machiavelli. However, he set himself to the
task of consolation with equal philosophy and tenderness. He began by
reminding, or rather informing, Lenny Fairfield of all the instances of
illustrious men afflicted by the injustice of others that occurred to
his own excellent memory. He told him how the great Epictetus, when in
slavery, had a master whose favorite amusement was pinching his leg,
which, as the amusement ended in breaking that limb, was worse than the
stocks. He also told him the anecdote of Lenny's own gallant countryman,
Admiral Byng, whose execution gave rise to Voltaire's celebrated
witticism, "_En Angleterre on tue un amiral pour encourager les
autres._" ("In England th