is ready for anything; and the worse the thing is the more ready he is
for it. There are riff-raff and refuse always about who are ready to
volunteer for any filibustering expedition; and that full as much for the
sheer devilry of the enterprise as for any real profit it is to be to
themselves. Wherever mischief is to be done, there your true varlet is
sure to turn up. Well, just such a land-shark was this Ill-pause, who
was such an ally and accomplice to Diabolus that he had need for no
other. What possible certificate in evil could exceed this--that the
devil took not any with him when he went out on his worst errand but this
same Ill-pause, who was his orator on all his most difficult occasions?

2. Ill-pause was a varlet, then, and he was also an orator. Now, an
orator, as you know, is a great speaker. An orator is a man who has the
excellent and influential gift of public speech. And on great occasions
in public life when people are to be instructed, and impressed, and
moved, and won over, then the great orator sets up his platform.
Quintilian teaches us in his _Institutes_ that it is only a good man who
can be a really great orator. What would that fine writer have said had
he lived to read the _Holy War_, and seen the most successful of all
orators that ever opened a mouth, and who was all the time a diabolical
old varlet? What would the author of _The Education of an Orator_ have
said to that? Diabolus did not on every occasion bring up his great
orator Ill-pause. He did not always come up himself, and he did not
always send up Ill-pause. It was only on difficult occasions that both
Diabolus and his orator also came up. You do not hear your great
preachers every Sabbath. They would not long remain great preachers, and
you would soon cease to pay any attention to them, if they were always in
the pulpit. Neither do you have your great orators at every street
corner. Their masters only build theatres for them when some great
occasion arises in the land, and when the best wisdom must straightway be
spoken to the people and in the best way. Then you bring up Quintilian's
orator if you have him at your call. As Diabolus has done from time to
time with his great and almost always successful orator Ill-pause. On
difficult occasions he came himself on the scene and Ill-pause with him.
On such difficult occasions as in the Garden of Eden; as when Noah was
told to make haste and build an ark; as also when