While he was gone back into the house to preserve his work from injury
and was giving the slaves, whom he had desired to follow him,
instructions as to how it should be carried so as not to damage it, his
master Papias came into the palace-court. He had come to put the last
touches to the works he had begun, and proposed to make a fresh attempt
to win the favor of the man whom he now knew to be the Emperor. Papias
was somewhat uneasy for he was alarmed at the thought that Pollux might
now betray how small a share his master had in his last works--which had
brought him higher praise than all he had done previously. It might even
have been wise on his part to pocket his pride and to induce his former
scholar, by lavish promises, to return to his workshop; but the evening
before he had been betrayed into speaking before the Emperor with so much
indignation at the young artist's evil disposition, of his delight at
being rid of him, that, on Hadrian's account, he must give up that idea.
Nothing was now to be done, but to procure the removal of Pollux from
Alexandria, or to render him in some way incapable of damaging him, and
this he might perhaps be able to do by the instrumentality of the
wrathful Emperor.

It even came into his mind to hire some Egyptian rascal to have him
assassinated; but he was a citizen of peaceful habits, to whom a breach
of the law was an abomination and he cast the thought from him as too
horrible and base. He was not over-nice in his choice of means, he knew
men, was very capable of finding his way up the backstairs, and did not
hesitate when need arose to calumniate others boldly, and thus he had
before now won the day in many a battle against his fellow-artists of
distinction. His hope of succeeding in the tripping of a scholar of no
great repute, and of rendering him harmless so long as the Emperor should
remain in Alexandria, was certainly not an over-bold one. He hated the
gate-keeper's son far less than he feared him, and he did not conceal