And, by the bye, why should not earthquakes, and floods, and pestilences, be only just so many ways which the cunning old brute earth has of scratching herself when the human fleas and their palace and city bites get too troublesome ?' At a turn of the road he was aroused from this profitable meditation by a shriek, the shrillness of which told him that it was a woman's.
He looked up, and saw close to him, among the smouldering ruins of a farmhouse, two ruffians driving before them a young girl, with her hands tied behind her, while the poor creature was looking back piteously after something among the ruins, and struggling in vain, bound as she was, to escape from her captors and return.
'Conduct unjustifiable in any fleas,--eh, Bran?
How do I know that, though?
Why should it not be a piece of excellent fortune for her, if she had but the equanimity to see it?
Why--what will happen to her?
She will betaken to Rome, and sold as a slave....

And in spite of a few discomforts in the transfer, and the prejudice which some persons have against standing an hour on the catasta to be handled from head to foot in the minimum of clothing, she will most probably end in being far better housed, fed, bedizened, and pampered to her heart's desire, than ninety-nine out of a hundred of her sister fleas....

till she begins to grow old....

which she must do in any case....And if she have not contrived to wheedle her master out of her liberty, and to make tip a pretty little purse of savings, by that time--why, it is her own fault.
Eh, Bran ?' But Bran by no means agreed with his view of the case; for after watching the two ruffians, with her head stuck on one side, for a minute or two, she suddenly and silently, after the manner of mastiffs, sprang upon them, and dragged one to the ground.
'Oh! that is the "fit and beautiful," in this case, as they say in Alexandria, is it?
Well--I obey.

You are at least a more practical teacher than ever Hypatia was.