Should thereby win to heaven—well,
Who (let me ask you) goes to hell?
"No, no. I shall eat nobody. However, I am somewhat old and do not readily distinguish your voices from a distance. So how am I to determine winner and loser? In view of this, pray draw near and make me acquainted with the case. Then I can pronounce a judgment that discriminates the essence of the matter, and thus causes no impediment in my march to the other world. You know the stanza:
If any man, from pride or greed,
Timidity or wrath,
Judge falsely, he has set his foot
On hell's down-sloping path.
And again:
Who wrongs a sheep, slays kinsmen five;
Who wrongs a cow, slays ten;
A hundred die for maidens wronged;
A thousand die for men.
"Therefore confide in me and speak clearly at the edge of my ear."
Why spin it out? That seedy rogue won their trust so fully that both drew near him. Then, of course, he seized them simultaneously, one with his paw, the other with the saw of his teeth. And when they were dead, he ate them both.
"And that is why I say:
A seedy umpire is not very . . . .
and the rest of it.
