e it so. But I will give one of my eyes to see the man
in Alexandria who can do the like!"

At this the old man broke out, and shaking his fist he cried: "Because
the man who can find anything worth doing, takes good care not to waste
his time here, making divine art a mere mockery by such trifling with
toys! By Sirius! I should like to fling all those pebbles into the
fire, the onyx and shells and jasper and what not, and smash all those
wretched tools with these fists, which were certainly made for other
work than this."

The youth laid an arm round his father's stalwart neck, and gayly
interrupted his wrath. "Oh yes, Father Heron, Philip and I have felt
often enough that they know how to hit hard."

"Not nearly often enough," growled the artist, and the young man went
on:

"That I grant, though every blow from you was equal to a dozen from the
hand of any other father in Alexandria. But that those mighty fists on
human arms should have evoked the bewitching smile on the sweet lips of
this Psyche, if it is not a miracle of art, is--"

"The degradation of art," the old man put in; but Alexander hastily
added:

"The victory of the exquisite over the coarse."

"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