oving crowd on the street. Only Actaeon
remained, examining him with interest, as if marveling at finding in a
far-away city a man so like those who in Athens swarmed about the
Academy, forming a class of hungry and obscure philosophic plebs.

The parasite, seeing himself with no other audience than the Greek,
caught him by the arm.

"You alone deserve to hear me. One can easily perceive that you are from
_there_, and that you know how to distinguish merit."

"Who is that Sonnica whose customs so anger you? Do you know the story
of her life?" asked the Athenian, desirous of hearing the history of a
woman who seemed to fill the whole city with her name.

"Do I know it? A thousand times she has told me in her hours of
melancholy and weariness, which out-number all the rest. When I cannot
manage to make her laugh with my wit, when she feels the need of
un-burdening her mind, then she tells of her past with as much abandon
as though she were talking to a dog; but it is a long story."

The philosopher paused and winked one eye, pointing to a door near at
hand, within which was a perforated counter holding a row of amphorae.

"We shall be more comfortable in Fulvius' house. He is a most honorable
Roman who swears that he has quarreled with water. Day before yesterday
he received a famous wine from Laurona. I smell its perfume even here."

"I have not a single obolus in my pouch."

The philosopher sniffed as if inhaling the vapor of the new wine, and
made a gesture of disappointment. Then he looked at the Greek
affectionately.

"You are worthy to hear me; poor, like myself, surrounded by these
merchants who stock their vaults with silver! Since there is to be no
wine for us, let us take a walk. That clears the brain. I will treat you
as Aristotle treated his favorite pupils."

Strolling along the portico Euphobias began to relate what he knew of
Sonnica's life.

She was believed to have been born in Cyprus, the isle beloved of
mariners. On those shores where the poets made the triumphant beauty of
Aphrodite spring from the foam, the women of the island run by night in
search of mariners to offer themselves in memory of the goddess. Sonnica
was the fruit of one such alligation with a rower. She vaguely
recollected the early years of her childhood, running about the deck of
a ship, springing from one bank of rowers to another, fed and scorned
like the cats on shipboard, visiting many ports populated by people
divers