After reflecting about it all day, I have found a trick which is worth
putting into execution,--a famous trick, that will drive him crazy.
While avenging the insult offered to the Order in my person, we shall
be feeding the sacred animals of the Egyptians,--little beasts which
are, after all, the creatures of God, and which man unjustly
persecutes. Thus we see that good is the child of evil, and evil is
the offspring of good; such is the paramount law of the universe! I
now order you all, on pain of displeasing your very humble grand
master, to procure clandestinely, each one of you, twenty rats, male
or female as heaven pleases. Collect your contingent within three
days. If you can get more, the surplus will be welcome. Keep the
interesting rodents without food; for it is essential that the
delightful little beasts be ravenous with hunger. Please observe that
I will accept both house-mice and field-mice as rats. If we multiply
twenty-two by twenty, we shall have four hundred; four hundred
accomplices let loose in the old church of the Capuchins, where Fario
has stored all his grain, will consume a not insignificant quantity!
But be lively about it! There's no time to lose. Fario is to deliver
most of the grain to his customers in a week or so; and I am
determined that that Spaniard shall find a terrible deficit.
Gentlemen, I have not the merit of this invention," continued Max,
observing the signs of general admiration. "Render to Caesar that
which is Caesar's, and to God that which is God's.
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