e day I got the prize in
the regatta at Venice?"

"Tell me about that, my child."

And he listened, his neck stretched forward, his mouth half open, his
hands in his son's. A sound of steps came in from the corridor, and a
dull knock was struck upon the door. It was the fatal hour. The poor
father had forgotten it.

The priests had already begun to sing the death hymn; the executioner was
ready, the procession had set out, when Solomon the fisherman appeared
suddenly on the threshold of the prison, his eyes aflame and his brow
radiant with the halo of the patriarchs. The old man drew himself up to
his full height, and raising in one hand the reddened knife, said in a
sublime voice, "The sacrifice is fulfilled. God did not send His angel
to stay the hand of Abraham."

The crowd carried him in triumph!

[The details of this case are recorded in the archives of the Criminal
Court at Naples. We have changed nothing in the age or position of the
persons who appear in this narrative. One of the most celebrated
advocates at the Neapolitan bar secured the acquittal of the old man.]

DERUES

One September afternoon in 1751, towards half-past five, about a score of
small boys, chattering, pushing, and tumbling over one another like a
covey of partridges, issued from one of the religious schools of
Chartres. The joy of the little troop just escaped from a long and
wearisome captivity was doubly great: a slight accident to one of the
teachers had caused the class to be dismissed half an hour earlier than
usual, and in consequence of the extra work thrown on the teaching staff
the brother whose duty it was to see all the scholars safe home was
compelled to omit that part of his daily task. Therefore not only thirty
or forty minutes were stolen from work, but there was also unexpected,
uncontrolled liberty, free from the surveillance of that black-cassocked
overseer who kept order in their ranks. Thirty minutes! at that age it
is a century, of laughter and prospective games! Each had promised
solemnly, under pain of severe punishment, to return straight to his
paternal nest without delay, but the air was so fresh and pure, the
country smiled all around! The school, or preferably the cage, which had
just opened, lay at the extreme edge of one of the suburbs, and it only
required a few steps to slip under a cluster of trees by a sparkling
brook beyond which rose undulating ground, breaking the monotony of a
vas