ood empty; finally, in this
decade of the golden age, only one single deplorable event occurred
... the lawyers died from hunger and quietude.

Alas! that so happy a time should have an end! But everything has an
end in this world, even the discourses of the most eloquent fathers of
the country. At last the much-to-be-envied decade came to a
termination in the following way.

A soldier named Briones had obtained permission for a few days' leave
to enable him to visit his native place, which was Villagananes. He
took the road which led to the lofty mountain upon whose summit the
son-in-law of Mother Holofernes was cursing all mothers-in-law, past,
present, and future, promising as soon as ever he regained his power
to put an end to that class of vipers, and by a very simple
method--the abolition of matrimony. Much of his time was spent in
composing and reciting satires against the invention of washing linen,
the primal cause of his present trouble.

Arrived at the foot of the mountain, Briones did not care to go round
the mountain like the road, but wished to go straight ahead, assuring
the carriers who were with him, that if the mountain would not go to
the right-about for him he would pass over its summit, although it
were so high that he should knock his head against the sky.

When he reached the summit, Briones was struck with amazement on
seeing the phial borne like a pimple on the nose of the mountain. He
took it up, looked through it, and on perceiving the demon, who with
years of confinement and fasting, the sun's rays, and sadness, had
dwindled and become as dried as a prune, exclaimed in surprise:--

"Whatever vermin is this? What a phenomenon!"

"I am an honourable and meritorious demon," said the captive, humbly
and courteously. "The perversity of a treacherous mother-in-law, into
whose clutches I fell, has held me confined here during the last ten
years; liberate me, valiant warrior, and I will grant any favour you
choose to solicit."

"I should like my demission from the army," said Briones.

"You shall have it; but uncork, uncork quickly, for it is a most
monstrous anomaly to have thrust into a corner, in these revolutionary
times, the first revolutionist in the world."

Briones drew the cork out slightly, and a noxious vapour issued from
the bottle and ascended to his brain. He sneezed, and immediately
replaced the stopper with such a violent blow from his hand that the
cork was suddenly depres