rossed behind his head, keeping up, even in his sleep,
a half-conscious comment of growls on the following intellectual
conversation:--

'Noble wine this, is it not?'

'Perfect. Who bought it for us?'

'Old Miriam bought it, at some great tax-farmer's sale. The fellow was
bankrupt, and Miriam said she got it for the half what it was worth.'

'Serve the penny-turning rascal right. The old vixen-fox took care, I'll
warrant her, to get her profit out of the bargain.'

'Never mind if she did. We can afford to pay like men, if we earn like
men.'

'We shan't afford it long, at this rate,' growled Wulf.

'Then we'll go and earn more. I am tired of doing nothing.'

'People need not do nothing, unless they choose,' said Goderic. 'Wulf
and I had coursing fit for a king, the other morning on the sand-hills.
I had had no appetite for a week before, and I have been as sharp-set as
a Danube pike ever since.'

'Coursing? What, with those long-legged brush-tailed brutes, like a fox
upon stilts, which the prefect cozened you into buying.'

'All I can say is, that we put up a herd of those--what do you call them
here--deer with goats' horns?'

'Antelopes?'

'That's it--and the curs ran into them as a falcon does into a skein of
ducks. Wulf and I galloped and galloped over those accursed sand-heaps
till the horses stuck fast; and when they got their wind again, we found
each pair of dogs with a deer down between them--and what can man want
more, if he cannot get fighting? You eat them, so you need not sneer.'

'Well, dogs are the only things worth having, then, that this Alexandria
does produce.'

'Except fair ladies!' put in one of the girls.

'Of course. I'll except the women. But the men-'

'The what? I have not seen a man since I came here, except a dock-worker
or two--priests and fine gentlemen they are all--and you don't call them
men, surely?'

'What on earth do they do, beside riding donkeys?'

'Philosophise, they say.'

'What's that?'

'I'm sure I don't know; some sort of slave's quill-driving, I suppose.'

'Pelagia! do you know what philosophising is?'

'No--and I don't care.'

'I do,' quoth Agilmund, with a look of superior wisdom; 'I saw a
philosopher the other day.'

'And what sort of a thing was it?'

'I'll tell you. I was walking down the great street there, going to the
harbour; and I saw a crowd of boys--men they call them here--going into
a large doorway. So I asked one of them what was d