Berg. Ay, but I am not bound to do as I have heard that one Charondas, a Tyrian, did, who published a law that no one should enter the national assembly in arms, on pain of death.  Forgetting this, he one day entered the assembly girt with a sword; the fact was pointed out to him, and, on the instant, he drew his sword, plunged it into his body, and thus he was the first who made the law, broke it, and suffered its penalty.  But I made no law; all I did was to promise that I would bite my tongue, if I chanced to utter an acrimonious word; but things are not so strictly managed in these times as in those of the ancients.  To-day a law is made, and to-morrow it is broken, and perhaps it is fit it should be so.  To-day a man promises to abandon his fault, and to-morrow he falls into a greater.  It is one thing to extol discipline, and another to inflict it on one’s self; and indeed there is a wide difference between saying and doing.  The devil may bite himself, not I; nor have I a mind to perform heroic acts of self-denial here on this mat, where there are no witnesses to commend my honourable determination.

Scip. In that case, Berganza, were you a man you would be a hypocrite, and all your acts would be fictitious and false, though covered with the cloak of virtue, and done only that men might praise you, like the acts of all hypocrites.

Berg. I don’t know what I should do if I were a man; but what I do know is that at present I shall not bite my tongue, having so many things yet to tell, and not knowing how or when I shall be able to finish them; but rather fearing that when the sun rises we shall be left groping without the power of speech.

Scip. Heaven forbid it!  Go on with your story, and do not run off the road into needless digressions; in that way only you will come soon to the end of it, however long it may be.

Berg. I say, then, that having seen the thievery, impudence, and shameful conduct of the negroes, I determined, like a good servant, to put an end to their doings, if possible, and I succeeded completely in my purpose.  The negress, as I have told you, used to come to amuse herself with the negro, making sure of my silence on account of the pieces of meat, bread, or cheese she threw me.  Gifts have much power, Scipio.

Scip. Much.  Don’t digress:  go on.

Berg. I remember, when I was a student, to have heard from the master a Latin phrase or adage, as they call it, which ran thus:  habet bovem in lingua.

Scip. O confound your Latin!  Have you so soon forgotten what we have said of those who mix up that language with ordinary conversation?

Berg. But this bit of Latin comes in here quite pat; for you must know that the Athenians had among their coin one which was stamped with the figure of an ox; and whenever a judge failed to do justice in consequence of having been corrupted, they used to say, “He has the ox on his tongue.”