me, and show me every step of the way. It is a just penalty.'

'The philosopher conquers circumstances by submitting to them. I go
peaceably. Indeed, the base necessities of the hog-bucket side of
existence compel me of themselves back to the Moon-gate, for another
early fruit job.'

So they went back together.

Now why Philammon's thoughts should have been running on the next new
specimen of womankind to whom he had been introduced, though only in
name, let psychologists tell, but certainly, after he had walked some
half-mile in silence, he suddenly woke up, as out of many meditations,
and asked--

'But who is this Hypatia, of whom you talk so much?'

'Who is Hypatia, rustic? The queen of Alexandria! In wit, Athene; Hera
in majesty; in beauty, Aphrodite!'

'And who are they?' asked Philammon.

The porter stopped, surveyed him slowly from foot to head with an
expression of boundless pity and contempt, and was in the act of walking
off in the ecstasy of his disdain, when he was brought to suddenly by
Philammon's strong arm.

'Ah!--I recollect. There is a compact.... Who is Athene? The goddess,
giver of wisdom. Hera, spouse of Zeus, queen of the Celestials.
Aphrodite, mother of love.... You are not expected to understand.'

Philammon did understand, however, so much as this, that Hypatia was a
very unique and wonderful person in the mind of his little guide; and
therefore asked the only further question by which he could as yet test
any Alexandrian phenomenon--

'And is she a friend of the patriarch?'

The porter opened his eyes very wide, put his middle finger in a
careful and complicated fashion between his fore and third fingers, and
extending it playfully towards Philammon, performed therewith certain
mysterious signals, the effect whereof being totally lost on him, the
little man stopped, took another look at Philammon's stately figure, and
answered--

'Of the human race in general, my young friend. The philosopher must
rise above the individual, to the contemplation of the universal....
Aha!-Here is something worth seeing, and the gates are open.' And he
stopped at the portal of a vast building.

'Is this the patriarch's house?'

'The patriarch's tastes are more plebeian. He lives, they say, in two
dirty little rooms--knowing what is fit for him. The patriarch's house?
Its antipodes, my young friend--that is, if such beings have a cosmic
existence, on which point Hypatia has her doubts. This is th