“Did you? Yes, so it is; but it’s very different from what it ever was. The furies have got hold of him with a vengeance! He’s frantic! Oh, if you had seen him! Two boys, both mad! It’s all the father!”
“I thought you’d like to hear something about dear, sweet Callista,” said her brother.
“Yes, I should indeed!” answered Jucundus. “By Esculapius! they’re all mad together!”
“Well, it is like madness!” cried Aristo, with great vehemence.
“The world’s going mad!” answered Jucundus, who was picking up, since he began to talk, an exercise which was decidedly good for him. “We are all going mad! I shall get crazed. The townspeople are crazed already. What an abominable, brutal piece of business was that three days ago! I put up my shutters. Did it come near you?—all on account of one or two beggarly Christians, and my poor boy. What harm could two or three, toads and vipers though they be, do here? They might have been trodden down easily. It’s another thing at Carthage. Catch the ringleaders, I say; make examples. The foxes escape, and our poor ganders suffer!”
Aristo, pierced with his own misery, had no heart or head to enter into the semi-political ideas of Jucundus, who continued,—
“Yes, it’s no good. The empire’s coming to pieces, mark my words! I told you so, if those beasts were let alone. They have been let alone. Remedies are too late. Decius will do no good. No one’s safe! Farewell, my friends! I am going. Like poor dear Callista, I shall be in prison, and, like her, find myself dumb!... Ah! yes, Callista; how did you find her?”
“O dear, sweet, suffering girl!” cried her brother.
“Yes, indeed!” answered Jucundus; “yes!” meditatively. “She is a dear, sweet, suffering girl! I thought he might perhaps have taken her off—that was my hope. He was so set upon hearing where she was, whether she could be got out. It struck me he had made the best of his way to her. She could do anything with him. And she loved him, she did!—I’m convinced of it!—nothing shall convince me otherwise! ‘Bring them together,’ I said, ‘and they will rush into each other’s arms.’ But they’re bewitched!—The whole world’s bewitched! Mark my words,—I have an idea who is at the bottom of this.”
“Oh!” groaned out Aristo; “I care not for top or bottom!—I care not for the whole world, or for anything at all but Callista! If you could have seen the dear, patient sufferer!” and the poor fellow burst into a flood of tears.