THE KNIGHTS. 4I

cially when they closed, and the sausage-seller tripped
him by a specially nasty trick. Enraged at being
thus worsted, he rushed off to the Senate, threatening
informations, charges of treason, and other dreadful
things.

“He’s gone to the Senate,” said the sausage-
seller’s backers to him. ‘“ Now’s your time to show
your mettle, if you are the mighty thief and liar that
you pretend to be.”

“Tm after him,” said the fellow, and off he went,
having been duly rubbed with grease to make him
slippery, and primed with garlic, like a fighting-cock,
to give him courage. Before very long he was back,
and told his backers, who had been getting a little
anxious about him, the story of how he had fared.

“T followed him,” he said, “close upon his heels
to the Senate House. There he was storming and
roaring, bellowing out words like thunderbolts, raving
against the aristocrats, calling them traitors and what
not, and the Senate sat listening, looking sharp as
mustard. And when I saw they took in all his lies,
and how he was cheating them, I muttered a prayer,
‘Hear me, Powers of Fraud, and Boobydom, and ye
Spirits of the Market and the Street, the places
where I was bred, and thou, great Impudence, hear
me, and help, giving me courage, and a ready tongue,
and a shameless voice.’ And when I had ended
my prayer, I took courage, for I knew that the Great
Spirits had heard me, and cried aloud, ‘O Senators,