Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878., page 209 by Various Authors
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day and the weight of his trailing robes, is simply astounding. Up one street, down another, round a corner, along a narrow lane--on he rushes as if bent upon rivalling that indefatigable giant who "walked round the world every morning before breakfast to sharpen his appetite."
"By Jove!" mutters P----, mopping his streaming face for the twentieth time, "what he's going to show us ought to be something special, by the hurry he's in to get to it. Anyhow, it's a queer style of showing us the way, to go pelting on like that, and leave us to take care of ourselves. I'll just halloo to him to slacken speed a bit."
But just as he is about to do so the priest halts suddenly in front of a high, blank wall of baked clay, in the midst of which a door opens and swallows him as if by magic. We come tearing up a moment later, and are about to enter at his heels when our way is unexpectedly barred by an ugly old Greek with one eye and with a threadbare crimson cap pulled down over his lean, sallow face, which looks very much like a half-decayed cucumber. "What do you want?" he growls, eying us from head to foot with the air of a bulldog about to bite.
We explain our errand, and are electrified with the information that we have been on the point of intruding ourselves into a private house; that the priest's business there is to pray over the master of it, who is dangerously ill; and that, in short, we have been "hunting upon a false scent" altogether. Having imparted this satisfactory information, Cerberus shuts the door in our faces (which are sufficiently blank by this time), and leaves us to think over the matter at our leisure.
"Confound the old mole!" growls P---- wrathfully: "if he didn't want us, why on earth did he tell us to follow him, I should like to know?"
"Are you quite sure that he did say so?" ask I. "What were the Greek words that he used?"
"'Mê akolouthei,' or something like that."
"Which means, 'Don't follow,'" I retort, transfixing the