"A victory!" exclaimed Heron, with a scornful flourish of his hand.
"I know, boy, why you are trying to garland the oppressive yoke with
flowers of flattery. So long as your surly old father sits over the
vice, he only whistles a song and spares you his complaints. And then,
there is the money his work brings in!"

He laughed bitterly, and as Melissa looked anxiously up at him, her
brother exclaimed:

"If I did not know you well, master, and if it would not be too great a
pity, I would throw that lovely Psyche to the ostrich in Scopas's court-
yard; for, by Herakles! he would swallow your gem more easily than we can
swallow such cruel taunts. We do indeed bless the Muses that work brings
you some surcease of gloomy thoughts. But for the rest--I hate to speak
the word gold. We want it no more than you, who, when the coffer is
full, bury it or hide it with the rest. Apollodorus forced a whole
talent of the yellow curse upon me for painting his men's room. The
sailor's cap, into which I tossed it with the rest, will burst when
Seleukus pays me for the portrait of his daughter; and if a thief robs
you, and me too, we need not fret over it. My brush and your stylus will
earn us more in no time. And what are our needs? We do not bet on
quail-fights; we do not run races; I always had a loathing for purchased
love; we do not want to wear a heap of garments bought merely because
they take our fancy--indeed, I am too hot as it is under this scorching
sun. The house is your own. The rent paid by Glaukias, for the work-
room and garden you inherited from your father, pays for half at least of
what we and the birds and the slaves eat. As for Philip, he lives on air
and philosophy; and, besides, he is fed out of the great breadbasket of
the Museum."