erous as the open
mouths you see shouting yonder. It is time to silence them. Go to the
old man's house and soothe him--Barine also, if she is there. If you
find messengers from the Regent, raise objections to the unprecedented
decree. You know the portions of the law which can be turned to
Didymus's advantage."

"Since the reign of Euergetes II, registered landed property has been
unassailable, and his was recorded."

"So much the better. Tell the officials also, confidentially, that you
know of objections just discovered which may perhaps change the Regent's
views."

"And, above all, I shall insist upon my right to choose the place for
the twin statues. The Queen herself directed the others to heed my
opinion."

"That will cast the heaviest weight into the scale. We shall meet later.
You will prefer to keep away from Barine to-night. If you see her, tell
her that Archibius said he would visit her later--for an object I will
explain afterwards. I shall probably go to Iras to bring her to reason.
It will be better not to mention Caesarion's wish."

"Certainly--and you will give nothing to yonder brawler."

"On the contrary. I feel very generous. If Peitho will aid me, the
insatiate fellow will get more than may be agreeable to him."

Then grasping the architect's hand, Dion forced his way through the
throng surrounding the high platform on wheels, upon which the closely
covered piece of sculpture had been rolled up. The gate of the scholar's
house stood open, for an officer in the Regent's service had really
entered a short time before, but the Scythian guards sent by the
exegetus Demetrius, one of Barine's friends, were keeping back the
throng of curious spectators.

Their commander knew Gorgias, and he was soon standing in the impluvium
of the scholar's house, an oblong, rootless space, with a fountain in
the centre, whose spray moistened the circular bed of flowers around it.
The old slave had just lighted some three-branched lamps which burned on
tall stands. The officers sent by the Regent to inform Didymus that his
garden would be converted into a public square had just arrived.

When Gorgias entered, these magistrates, their clerks, and the witnesses
accompanying them--a group of twenty men, at whose head was Apollonius,
a distinguished officer of the royal treasury--were in the house. The
slave who admitted the architect informed him of it.

In the atrium a young girl, doubtless a member of the house