You see I have not been to Austria on business, but am here in this good old flesh of mine, such as it is." "Consequently--" I began, and then stopped.

I suddenly felt that Benoni had turned the tables upon me, I could not tell how.
"Consequently," said he, continuing my sentence, "when I told you that I was going to Austria I was lying." "The frankness of the statement obliges me to believe that you are now telling the truth," I answered, angrily.

I felt uneasy.

Benoni laughed in his peculiar way.
"Precisely," he continued again, "I was lying.

I generally do, for so long as I am believed I deceive people; and when they find me out, they are confused between truth and lying, so that they do not know what to believe at all.