rbulent and mischievous
rabble. As he seemed about to suffer severe ill-usage, a personage of
dignified and portly appearance hastened up, and with his staff showered
blows to right and left upon the rioters.

"Scoundrels," he exclaimed, "finely have ye profited by my precepts, thus
to misuse an innocent stranger! But I will no longer dwell among such
barbarians. I will remove my school to Tarsus!"

The mob dispersed. The victim and his deliverer stood face to face.

"Mnesitheus!"

"Rufus!"

"Call me Rufinianus," corrected the latter; "for such is the appellation
which I have felt it due to myself to assume, since the enhancement of my
dignity by becoming Euphronius's successor and son-in-law."

"Son-in-law! Am I to lose the reward of my incredible sufferings?"

"Thou forgettest," said Rufinianus, "that Euphronia's hand was not promised
as the reward of any austerities, but as the meed of the most intelligent,
that is, the most acceptable, account of the Indian philosophy, which in
the opinion of the late eminent Euphronius, has been delivered by me. But
come to my chamber, and let me minister to thy necessities."

These having been duly attended to, Rufinianus demanded Mnesitheus's
history, and then proceeded to narrate his own.

"On my journey homeward," said he, "I reflected seriously on the probable
purpose of our master in sending us forth, and saw reason to suspect that I
had hitherto misapprehended it. For I could not remember that he had ever
admitted that he could have anything to learn from other philosophers, or
that he had ever exhibited the least interest in philosophic dogmas,
excepting his own. The system of the Indians, I thought, must be either
inferior to that of Euphronius, or superior. If the former, he will not
want it: if the latter, he will want it much less. I therefore concluded
that our mission was partly a concession to public opinion, partly to
enable him to say that his name was known, and his teaching proclaimed on
the very banks of the Ganges. I formed my plan accordingly, and
disregarding certain indications that I was neither expected nor wanted,
presented myself before Euphronius with a gladsome countenance, slightly
overcast by sorrow on account of thee, whom I affirmed to have been
devoured by a tiger.

"'Well,' said Euphronius in a disdainful tone, 'and what about this vaunted
wisdom of the Indians?'

"'The wisdom of the Indians,' I replied, 'is entirely borrowed from
P