"That sounds like Plato," said Stephanus with a smile.

"All that heathen farrago comes back to me today," cried Paulus. "I used
to know it well, and I have often thought that his face must have
resembled that of the Saviour."

"But only as a beautiful song might resemble the voice of an angel," said
Stephanus somewhat drily. "He who plunges into the depths of philosophic
systems--"

"That never was quite my case," said Paulus. "I did indeed go through
the whole educational course; Grammar, Rhetoric, Dialectic and Music--"

"And Arithmetic, Geometry, and Astronomy," added Stephanus.

"Those were left to the learned many years since," continued Paulus,
"and I was never very eager for learning. In the school of Rhetoric I
remained far behind my fellows, and if Plato was dear to me I owe it to
Paedonomus of Athens, a worthy man whom my father engaged to teach us."

"They say he had been a great merchant," interrupted Stephanus. "Can it
be that you were the son of that rich Herophilus, whose business in
Antioch was conducted by the worthy Jew Urbib?"

"Yes indeed," replied Paulus, looking down at the ground in some
confusion. "Our mode of life was almost royal, and the multitude of our
slaves quite sinful. When I look back on all the vain trifles that my
father had to care for, I feel quite giddy. Twenty sea-going ships in
the harbor of Eunostus, and eighty Nile-boats on Lake Mareotis belonged
to him. His profits on the manufacture of papyrus might have maintained