To
be just and friendly was to build the warmest and safest of all
nests, and to be kind and loving was to line it with the softest of
all furs and feathers, for the one precious, comfort-loving self
there to lie, revelling in downiest bliss. One of the laws
therefore most binding upon men because of its relation to the
first and greatest of all duties, was embodied in the Proverb he
had just read; and what stronger proof of its wisdom and truth
could they desire than the sudden and complete vengeance which had
fallen upon those worse than ordinary sinners who had offended
against the king's majesty by forgetting that 'Honesty Is the Best
Policy'?
At this point of the discourse the head of the legserpent rose from
the floor of the temple, towering above the pulpit, above the
priest, then curving downward, with open mouth slowly descended
upon him. Horror froze the sermon-pump. He stared upward aghast.
The great teeth of the animal closed upon a mouthful of the sacred
vestments, and slowly he lifted the preacher from the pulpit, like
a handful of linen from a washtub, and, on his four solemn stumps,
bore him out of the temple, dangling aloft from his jaws. At the
back of it he dropped him into the dust hole among the remnants of
a library whose age had destroyed its value in the eyes of the
chapter. They found him burrowing in it, a lunatic henceforth -
whose madness presented the peculiar feature, that in its paroxysms
he jabbered sense.
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