Page:Aelfric's Lives of Saints Vol 1.djvu/543

same city I obtained the money, and have found it nowhere else ; but I cannot at all understand how it has thus happened to me 696 that I act thus." Then said the town-reeve to him, *' Tell me now here openly in what city thou wast born, or to what city thou dost belong?" Then said he to him in answer, " Master, as I suppose in my mind, I belong to no city so rightly as to this city, as it appears to me. Master, this is the city Ephesus in which I was born and nurtured." Then said again the town-reeve to Malchus, " If thou wert born and nurtured here in the town, where are then thy parents who brought thee up, and can recognise thee? Let them be summoned hither to the bishop, and let them come forth here before us, that they may speak for thee, if they can answer for thee in any wise." And he, Malchus, answered, and named the names of his parents, what was the name of this one, and what was the naming of the other. Then the town-reeve knew nothing of the names which he there named, but quickly gave him the lie, and said to him tauntingly, " Now through thy false tale I have here perceived that thou art an exceedingly false man, and well canst, if thou shalt have need, find a false tale." He then, Malchus, knew not what to say, but stood there and bent down his head, and was so long still that some men said who stood there, "His tale is in no respect true, neither practiseth he other than a public deceit, but disguiseth himself as another man, and thereby concealeth his condition, that he may at any rate escape hence in some wise." And the town-reeve, with these words, conceived great wrath against Malchus, and with much anger chided him, and thus asked him, " Thou fool, and the greatest impostor who ever was chief in this city, in what wise can we believe thee and thy uncertain words, so that we may be certified that thou hast obtained this money from the possessions of thy parents? Here may every man see, who has any skill in the art of numbers, and the superscription of these pennies here showeth it openly to all men, that it is even more than three hundred and two and seventy years since the like money was current on the earth, and all men traded with it; and that was soon after the first days when Decius the