“Certainly.”

“And you, Pul?”

“No, Father.”

“You are too straight-nay, and so is your simple soul, to know what the thing is!  Well, listen then:  It would be a paradox, for instance, if I were to say to the Bishop as he marches past in procession:  ’You are godless out of sheer piety;’ or if I were to say to Paula, by way of excuse for all the flattery which I and your mother offered her just now:  ’Our incense was nauseous for very sweetness.’—­These paradoxes, when examined, are truths in a crooked form, and so they best suit the deformed.  Do you understand?”

“Certainly,” said Paula.

“And you, Pul?”

“I am not quite sure.  I should be better pleased to be simply told:  ’We ought not to have made such flattering speeches; they may vex a young girl.’”

“Very good, my straightforward child,” laughed her father.  “But look, there is the man!  Here, good Gibbus—­come here!—­Now, just consider:  supposing you had flattered some one so grossly that you had offended him instead of pleasing him:  How would you explain the state of affairs in telling me of it?”

The gardener, a short, square man, with a huge hump but a clever face and good features, reflected a minute and then replied:  “I wanted to make an ass smell at some roses and I put thistles under his nose.”

“Capital!” cried Paula; and as Gibbus turned away, laughing to himself, the physician said: 

“One might almost envy the man his hump.  But yet, fair Paula, I think we have some straight-limbed folks who can make use of such crooked phrases, too, when occasion serves.”

But Rufinus spoke before Paula could reply, referring her to his Essay on the deformed in soul and body; and then he went on vehemently: 

“I call you all to witness, does not Baste, the lame woman, restrict her views to the lower aspect of things, to the surface of the earth indeed?  She has one leg much shorter than the other, and it is only with much pains that we have contrived that it should carry her.  To limp along at all she is forced always to look down at the ground, and what is the consequence?  She can never tell you what is hanging to a tree, and about three weeks since I asked her under a clear sky and a waning moon whether the moon had been shining the evening before and she could not tell me, though she had been sitting out of doors with the others till quite late, evening after evening.  I have noticed, too, that she scarcely recognizes men who are rather tall, though she may have seen them three or four times.  Her standard has fallen short-like her leg.  Now, am I right or wrong?”

“In this instance you are right,” replied Philippus, “still, I know some lame people. . .”

And again words ran high between the friends; Pulcheria, however, put an end to the discussion this time, by exclaiming enthusiastically: 

“Baste is the best and most good-natured soul in the whole house!”