by that means, obtain his pardon. At last, having asked a stout young fellow for what he had been condemned to the galleys, the latter immediately confessed his crimes, which certainly were of no small enormity, adding that justice had been very lenient and had granted a special favour to him by condemning him for life to the galleys, though he had deserved death a long time since. Then, the vice-roy, with a voice of disdain, ordered this villain to be driven from the galleys, since he did not deserve to be in such good company, and might, in a short time, corrupt all those other honest and upright men.
La vraie Activité. The famous Dutch minister De Witt, one of the greatest statesmen of the age in which he lived, being asked by a friend, how he was able to despatch that multitude of affairs in which he was engaged, replied that his whole art consisted in doing one thing at once. "If, " says he, "I have any necessary despatches to make, I think nothing else until those are finished; if any domestic affairs require my attention, I give myself up wholly to them until they are set in order."
Le Conteur d'aventures. One of these marvellous story-tellers, who had travelled to Damascus, told his company that the bees of that country were as big as turkeys. "Pray, sir, " said a gentleman, "if bees are as big as turkeys, what must flies be?"
"Pray, sir, " replied the storyteller, "do you think that flies are larger in Damascus than elsewhere?"
"Of course, " said the gentleman.
"You are wrong, " said the storyteller; "in Damascus, flies are as small as elsewhere." 