munerative and particularly pressing commission for the Emperor,
which might, perhaps, be taken in hand that very night. The matter in
question was a statue of Urania, which must be completed in eight days by
the same method which Papias had introduced at the last festival of
Adonis, and to the scale which he, Pontius, indicated, in the palace of
Lochias itself. With regard to several works of restoration which had to
be carried out with equal rapidity, and as to the price to be paid, they
could agree at the same time and place.

The sculptor was a man of foresight and did not appear on the scene alone
but with his best assistant, Pollux, the son of the worthy couple at the
gate, and several slaves who dragged after him sundry trunks and carts
loaded with tools, boards, clay, gypsum and other raw materials of his
art. On the road to Lochias he had informed the young sculptor of the
business in hand, and had told him in a condescending tone that he would
be permitted to try his skill in reconstructing the Urania. At the gate
he had permitted Pollux to greet his parents, and had gone alone into the
palace to open his bargain with the architect without the presence of
witnesses.

The young artist perfectly understood his master. He knew that he would
be expected to carry out the statue of Urania, while his task-master,
after making some trifling alterations in the completed work, would
declare that it was his own. Pollux had for two years been obliged, more
than once, to put up with similar treatment; and now, as usual, he
submitted to this dishonest manoeuvre because, under his master there was
plenty to do, and the delight of work was to him the greatest he could
have.

Papias, to whom he had gone early as an apprentice and to whom he owed
the knowledge he possessed, was no miser, still Pollux needed money, not
for himself alone but because he had taken on himself the charge of a
widowed sister and her children as if they were his own family. He was
always glad to take some comfort into the narrow home of his parents, who
were poor, and to maintain his younger brother Teuker--who had devoted
himself to the same art--during the years of his apprenticeship. Again
and again he had thought of telling his master that he should start on
his own footing and earn laurels for himself, but what then would become
of those who relied on his help, if he gave up his regular earnings and
if he got no commissions when there were so ma