Backbite: To ''speak of a man as you find him'' when he can't find you.

Trial. A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of judges, advocates and jurors.

The most intolerant advocate is he who is trying to convince himself.

GNOSTICS, n. A sect of philosophers who tried to engineer a fusion between the early Christians and the Platonists. The former would not go into the caucus and the combination failed, greatly to the chagrin of the fusion managers.

VIRTUES, n.pl. Certain abstentions.

Debt, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slavedriver.

CERBERUS, n. The watch-dog of Hades, whose duty it was to guard the entrance - against whom or what does not clearly appear; everybody, sooner or later, had to go there, and nobody wanted to carry off the entrance.