If the poor man had got his
battered old helmet full of them, the ponderous alms would not have
driven the wolf gaunt and grinning many paces from his squalid
home,--always admitting that he had any home, however squalid, to crawl
into at sunset. And how often he crouched and whined, white-headed and
bare-headed all day, and did not get a _lepton_ (which was, in value,
thirty-one three hundred thirty-sixths of an English farthing) for his
pains! 'Tis such a pitiful story, that I am truly glad that the eminent
German scholar, Nicotinus of Heidelberg, in his work upon the Greek
Particle, has pretty clearly shown (Vol. xxviii. pp. 2850 to 5945) that
the story may be regarded as a myth, illustrating the great, eternal,
and universal danger of ultimate seediness, in which the most
prosperous creatures live. And just think of Napoleon squabbling about
wine with Sir Hudson Lowe,--the hero of Areola, without courage enough
to hang himself. Now you will notice, my dear friend, that he did not
lose his dignity, until, with true British instinct, they took away his
cash, and even opened his letters to confiscate his remittances. He
should have hidden the imperial spoons in a secret pocket.
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