Of my Incarceration in the Jug
fellow-creatures upon them, how shall they escape the damnation of Hell?” and he regarded me complacently.
He was a tall, thin fellow, with an ancient wig that sat awry upon him, and a face blotched and bubuckled with drinking. His arms and shanks were long and bony, and seemed ever in his way, so that you took the impression that he had more than his share of them; he looked for all the world like a dragon-fly in liquor. He stretched his ungainly carcase on the floor, and doubling up his knees, snuffed with a satisfied air. I groaned again.
“If you have shed blood,” observed the Ordinary, “blood shall be exacted of you, and after death, to burn in the fires of Gehenna. Thus doth the Holy Writ imply. The tears of a sinner avail not, for though in God is our refuge, yet shall not the judge of all do right?” He wiped his nose with his fingers, and looked at me.
“But if I repent,” said I humbly, “the Almighty will pardon me?”
The Ordinary smiled in a superior way, and
203
