He cherished, however, no intention of returning to Phrygia, and was still at a considerable distance from that region, when one night, as he was sitting in the inn of a small country town, his ear caught a phrase which arrested his attention.

“As true as the oracle of Dorylaeum.”  The speaker was a countryman, who appeared to have been asseverating something regarded by the rest of the company as greatly in need of confirmation.  The sudden start and stifled cry of the ex-priest drew all eyes to him, and he felt constrained to ask, with the most indifferent air he could assume: 

“Is the oracle of Dorylaeum, then, so exceedingly renowned for veracity?”

“Whence comest thou to be ignorant of that?” demanded the countryman, with some disdain.  “Hast thou never heard of the priest Eubulides?”

“Eubulides!” exclaimed the young traveller, “that is my own name!”

“Thou mayest well rejoice, then,” observed another of the guests, “to bear the name of one so holy and pure, and so eminently favoured by the happy Gods.  So handsome and dignified, moreover, as I may well assert who have often beheld him discharging his sacred functions.  And truly, now that I scan thee more closely, the resemblance is marvellous.  Only that thy namesake bears with him a certain air of divinity, not equally conspicuous in thee.”

“Divinity!” exclaimed another.  “Aye, if Phoebus himself ministered at his own shrine, he could wear no more majestic semblance than Eubulides.”

“Or predict the future more accurately,” added a priest.

“Or deliver his oracles in more exquisite verse,” subjoined a poet.

“Yet is it not marvellous,” remarked another speaker, “that for some considerable time after his installation the good Eubulides was unable to deliver a single oracle?”

“Aye, and that the first he rendered should have foretold the death of an aged woman, one of the ministers of the temple.”

“Ha!” exclaimed Eubulides, “how was that?”

“He prognosticated her decease on the following day, which accordingly came to pass, from her being choked with a piece of gold, not lawfully appertaining to herself, which she was endeavouring to conceal under the root of her tongue.”

“The Gods be praised for that!” ejaculated Eubulides, under his breath.  “Pshaw! as if there were Gods!  If they existed, would they tolerate this vile mockery?  To keep up the juggle—­well, I know it must be so; but to purloin my name! to counterfeit my person!  By all the Gods that are not, I will expose the cheat, or perish in the endeavour.”