This proposal pleased the old slave, and a short time after Gorgias entered the venerable philosopher’s tablinum.

Helena welcomed him like an intimate friend.  Whenever he appeared she thought the peril was half over.  Didymus, too, greeted him warmly, and conducted him to the little room where the youth possessed by demons lay on a divan.

He was still groaning and whimpering.  Tears were streaming down his cheeks, and, whenever any member of the household approached, he pushed him away.

When Gorgias held his hands and sternly ordered him to confess what wrong he had done, he sobbed out that he was the most ungrateful wretch on earth.  His baseness would ruin his kind parents, himself, and all his friends.

Then he accused himself of having caused the destruction of Didymus’s granddaughter.  He would not have gone to Antyllus again had not his recent generosity bound him to him, but now he must atone-ay, atone.  Then, as if completely crushed, he continued to mumble the word, “atone!” and for a time nothing more could be won from him.

Didymus, however, had the key to the last sentence.  A few weeks before, Philotas and several other pupils of the rhetorician whose lectures in the museum he attended had been invited to breakfast with Antyllus.  When the young student loudly admired the beautiful gold and silver beakers in which the wine was served, the reckless host cried:  “They are yours; take them with you.”  When the guests departed the cup-bearer asked Philotas, who had been far from taking the gift seriously, to receive his property.  Antyllus had intended to bestow the goblets; but he advised the youth to let him pay their value in money, for among them were several ancient pieces of most artistic workmanship, which Antony, the extravagant young fellow’s father, might perhaps be unwilling to lose.

Thereupon several rolls of gold solidi were paid to the astonished student—­and they had been of little real benefit, since they had made it possible for him to keep pace with his wealthy and aristocratic classmates and share many of their extravagances.  Yet he had not ceased to fulfil his duty to Didymus.

Though he sometimes turned night into day, he gave no serious cause for reproof.  Small youthful errors were willingly pardoned; for he was a good-looking, merry young fellow, who knew how to make himself agreeable to the entire household, even to the women.

What had befallen the poor youth that day?  Didymus was filled with compassion for him, and, though he gladly welcomed Gorgias, he gave him to understand that the leech’s absence vexed him.

But, during a long bachelor career in Alexandria, a city ever gracious to the gifts of Bacchus, Gorgias had become familiar with attacks like those of Philotas and their treatment, and after several jars of water had been brought and he had been left alone a short time with the sufferer, the philosopher secretly rejoiced that he had not summoned the grey-haired leech into the stormy night for Gorgias led forth his pupil with dripping hair, it is true, but in a state of rapid convalescence.