extra tunic, perhaps, or a spare bit of meat for a
dog, what more can he want? But I will tell you what you can do? And it
is not as a gift, I ask it. Poor and despised as he may be, no one can
say that the centurion Porthenus is a beggar. It is as a fair matter of
business that I offer it.'

'Well, my father?'

'It is this: I have two slaves, and can afford to keep only one of them,
particularly as but one can be of use to me. Will the imperator purchase
the other? I will give it for a fair price, and therefore no one can say
that I have asked for anything beyond a proper trade, with which either
side should be well satisfied.'

AEnone listened with a blush of shame for her father overspreading her
face. It did not occur to her that the slave rejected as useless could
be any other than the hunchback, whom her husband had bestowed upon the
centurion a few days before; and for the receiver to try to sell back a
gift to the giver was a depth of meanness for which no filial partiality
or affection could find an excuse.

'I will show him to you,' cried the centurion, losing a little of his
gruffness in his eagerness to effect a transaction, whereby, under the
thin guise of a simple trade, he could extort a benefit. 'I have brought
him with me, and left him below. You will see that he is of good
appearance, and that the imperator will be pleased and grateful to me
for the opportunity of possessing him.'

So saying, Porthenus strode to the head of the stairway, and issued his
commands in a stern voice, which made the vaulted ceilings of the palace
ring. A faint, weak response came up in answer, and in a moment the
slave entered the room.

'Is this the one of whom you spoke?' faltered AEnone, unable for the
moment to retain her self-possession as she beheld, not the angular,
wiry form of the hunchback, but the careworn and slim figure of Cleotos.
'I thought--indeed I thought that you spoke of the inferior of the two.'

'Ay, and so I do,' responded her father. 'Of what use to me can this man
be? The other one, indeed, is of tenfold value. There is no slave in
Rome like unto him for cleaning armor or sharpening a weapon, while to
run of an errand or manage any piece of business in which brains must
bear their part, I will trust him against the world. But as for this man
here, with his weak limbs and his simple face--do you know that I did
but set him to polish the rim of a shield, and in his awkwardness he let
it fall,