e you, and the whole kit of you.
What's the difference between you and another? Your people say, 'Earth's a
vanity, life's a dream, riches a deceit, pleasure a snare. Fratres
charissimi, the time is short;' but who love earth and life and riches and
pleasure better than they? You are all of you as fond of the world, as set
upon gain, as chary of reputation, as ambitious of power, as the jolly old
heathen, who, you say, is going the way of the pit."

"It is one thing to have a conscience," answered Agellius; "another thing
to act upon it. The conscience of these poor people is darkened. You had a
conscience once."

"Conscience, conscience," said Juba. "Yes, certainly, once I had a
conscience. Yes, and once I had a bad chill, and went about chattering and
shivering; and once I had a game leg, and then I went limping; and so, you
see, I once on a time had a conscience. O yes, I have had many consciences
before now--white, black, yellow, and green; they were all bad; but they
are all gone, and now I have none."

Agellius said nothing; his one wish, as may be supposed, was to get rid of
so unwelcome a visitor.

"The truth is," continued Juba, with the air of a teacher--"the truth is,
that religion was a fashion with me, which is now gone by. It was the
complexion of a particular stage of my life. I was neither the better nor
the worse for it. It was an accident, like the bloom on my face, which
soon," he said, spreading his fingers over his dirty-coloured cheeks, and
stroking them, "which soon will disappear. I acted according to the
feeling, while it lasted; but I can no more recall it than my first teeth,
or the down on my chin. It's among the things that were."

Agellius still keeping silence from weariness and disgust, he looked at
him in a significant way, and said, slowly, "I see how it is; I have
penetration enough to perceive that you don't believe a bit more about
religion than I do."

"You must not say that under my roof," cried Agellius, feeling he must not
let his brother's charge pass without a protest. "Many are my sins, but
unbelief is not one of them."

Juba tossed his head. "I think I can see through a stone slab as well as
any one," he said. "It is as I have said; but you're too proud to confess
it. It's part of your hypocrisy."

"Well," said Agellius coldly, "let's have done. It's getting late, Juba;
you'll be missed at home. Jucundus will be inquiring for you, and some of
those revelling friends