“A harum-scarum young chief,” replied Media, “heir to three islands; he likes nothing better than the sport you now see see him at.”

“He must be possessed by a devil,” said Mohi.

Said Babbalanja, “Then he is only like all of us.”  “What say you?” cried Media.

“I say, as old Bardianna in the Nine hundred and ninety ninth book of his immortal Ponderings saith, that all men—­”

“As I live, my lord, he has swamped three canoes,” cried Mohi, pointing off the beam.

But just then a fiery fin-back whale, having broken into the paddock of the lagoon, threw up a high fountain of foam, almost under Tribonnora’s nose; who, quickly turning about his canoe, cur-like slunk off; his steering-paddle between his legs.

Comments over; “Babbalanja, you were going to quote,” said Media.  “Proceed.”

“Thank you, my lord.  Says old Bardianna, ’All men are possessed by devils; but as these devils are sent into men, and kept in them, for an additional punishment; not garrisoning a fortress, but limboed in a bridewell; so, it may be more just to say, that the devils themselves are possessed by men, not men by them.’”

“Faith!” cried Media, “though sometimes a bore, your old Bardianna is a trump.”

“I have long been of that mind, my lord.  But let me go on.  Says Bardianna, ’Devils are divers;—­strong devils, and weak devils; knowing devils, and silly devils; mad devils, and mild devils; devils, merely devils; devils, themselves bedeviled; devils, doubly bedeviled.”

“And in the devil’s name, what sort of a devil is yours?” cried Mohi.

“Of him anon; interrupt me not, old man.  Thus, then, my lord, as devils are divers, divers are the devils in men.  Whence, the wide difference we see.  But after all, the main difference is this:—­that one man’s devil is only more of a devil than another’s; and be bedeviled as much as you will; yet, may you perform the most bedeviled of actions with impunity, so long as you only bedevil yourself.  For it is only when your deviltry injures another, that the other devils conspire to confine yours for a mad one.  That is to say, if you be easily handled.  For there are many bedeviled Bedlamites in Mardi, doing an infinity of mischief, who are too brawny in the arms to be tied.”

“A very devilish doctrine that,” cried Mohi.  “I don’t believe it.”

“My lord,” said Babbalanja, “here’s collateral proof;—­the sage lawgiver Yamjamma, who flourished long before Bardianna, roundly asserts, that all men who knowingly do evil are bedeviled; for good is happiness; happiness the object of living; and evil is not good.”

“If the sage Yamjamma said that,” said old Mohi, “the sage Yamjamma might have bettered the saying; it’s not quite so plain as it might be.”

“Yamjamma disdained to be plain; he scorned to be fully comprehended by mortals.  Like all oracles, he dealt in dark sayings.  But old Bardianna was of another sort; he spoke right out, going straight to the point like a javelin; especially when he laid it down for a universal maxim, that minus exceptions, all men are bedeviled.”