Roderick, amidst the
throng of the street, laid his hand on this man's chest, and looking
full into his forbidding face,
"How is the snake today?"- he inquired, with a mock expression of
sympathy.
"The snake!" exclaimed the brother-hater- "What do you mean?"
"The snake! The snake! Does he gnaw you?" persisted Roderick.
"Did you take counsel with him this morning, when you should have been
saying your prayers? Did he sting, when you thought of your
brother's health, wealth, and good repute? Did he caper for joy,
when you remembered the profligacy of his only son? And whether he
stung, or whether he frolicked, did you feel his poison throughout
your body and soul, converting everything to sourness and
bitterness? That is the way of such serpents. I have learned the whole
nature of them from my own!"
"Where is the police?" roared the object of Roderick's persecution,
at the same time giving an instinctive clutch to his breast. "Why is
this lunatic allowed to go at large?"
"Ha, ha!" chuckled Roderick, releasing his grasp of the man.
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