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ouths. But by the next day they had recovered their speech and cried out: the fishmonger's son is going by to his lessons and dare not play at ball. Azariah would whip him if he did. One a little bolder than the rest dangled a piece of rope in his face saying: this is what you'd get if you stayed with us. He was moved to run after the boy and cuff him, but the quires under his arms restrained him and he passed on, keeping a dignified silence. Soon thou'lt be reading to us in the synagogues! was the last jeer cried after him that day, but for many a day he caught sight of a face grinning at him through the hedge, and the way to his lessons became hateful. As he showed no sign of anger, the persecution grew wearisome to the persecutors, and soon after he discovered another way to Azariah. But this way was beset with women, whose sex impelled a yearning for this tall lithe boy with the gazelle-like eyes. Joseph was more inclined to the welcome of the Greek poets and sculptors who stopped their mules and leaning from high saddles spoke to him, for he was now beginning to speak Greek and it was pleasant to avail himself of the advantages of the road to chatter his Greek and to acquire new turns of phrases. Why not? since it seemed to be the wish of these men to instruct him. My very model! a bearded man cried out one morning, and stopping his mule he bent from the saddle towards Joseph and asked him many questions. Joseph told him that he was on his way to his lessons and that he passed through this lane every morning. At these words the sculptor's eyes lighted up, for he had accepted Joseph's answer as a tryst, and when Joseph came through the lane next day he caught sight of the sculptor waiting for him and--flattered--Joseph entered into conversation with him, resisting, however, the sculptor's repeated invitation that Joseph should come to sit to him--if not for a statue, for a bust at least. But a bust is a graven image, Joseph answered, and as the point was being debated a rich merchant came by, riding a white horse that curveted splendidly, and Joseph, who was interested in the horse, referred the difficulty they were engaged in to the merchant. After some consideration of it he asked the meaning of the scrolls that Joseph carried in his hand, feigning an interest in them and in Azariah. Who is he? he asked, and Joseph answered: a very learned man, my tutor, to whom I must be on my way. And with a pretty bow he left
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