slave in the market place of Hippo."

"What company did he enter?" Brinnaria queried.

"Veppius did not state," Vocco replied; "he merely said that
Almo sailed the next day for Spain."

"The fool!" Brinnaria cried. "The three fools; a fool of a Veppius
to write so vaguely, a fool of a governor to be persuaded so easily
and Almo the biggest fool of all!

"What a fool of a lover I have! Are all men like that?
I'm as much in love with him as he with me and I can
behave myself decently and keep outwardly calm and
observe the conventions of life. Why can't he be decent?
How can it comfort a man in love to throw away a
splendid career, abandon a great income and vanish
from the ken of all who love him? What madness is
this with which the gods afflict him? Oh, I could tear
my hair with rage!"

To trace Almo everything was done that could be done.
Vocco himself set out at once for Hippo. He found that
Almo had been sold to a Greek slave-dealer named
Olynthides, brother of the well-known dealer at Rome.
He found Olynthides a small man with a club-foot. He
said he remembered the matter, that he had been employed
to buy Almo and resell him for cash, especially to conceal
the real purchaser.