“Oh! and other and better ones,” cried she.  “What I have heard and seen to-day passes all belief!”

“And you will celebrate it in your poems?”

“Only some of it, and that in a satire which I propose to aim at you.”

“I tremble!”

“With delight, it is to be hoped; my poem will embalm your memory for posterity.”

“That is true, and the more spiteful your verses, the more certainly will future generations believe that Verus was the Phaon of Balbilla’s Sappho, and that love scorned filled the fair singer with bitterness.”

“I thank you for the caution.  To-day at any rate you are safe from my verse, for I am tired to death.”

“Did you venture into the streets?”

“It was quite safe, for I had a trustworthy escort.”

“May I be allowed to ask who?”

“Why not?  It was Pontius the architect who was with me.”

“He knows the town well.”

“And in his care I would trust myself to descend, like Orpheus, into Hades.”

“Happy Pontius!”

“Most happy Verus!”

“What am I to understand by those words, charming Balbilla?”

“The poor architect is able to please by being a good guide, while to you belongs the whole heart of Lucilla, your sweet wife.”

“And she has the whole of mine so far as it is not full of Balbilla.  Good-night, saucy Muse; sleep well.”

“Sleep ill, you incorrigible tormentor!” cried the girl, drawing the curtain across her window.

CHAPTER VIII.

The sleepless wretch on whom some trouble has fallen, so long as night surrounds him, sees his future life as a boundless sea in which he is sailing round and round like a shipwrecked man, but when the darkness yields, the new and helpful day shows him a boat for escape close at hand, and friendly shores in the distance.

The unfortunate Pollux also awoke towards morning with sighs many and deep; for it seemed to him that last evening he had ruined his whole future prospects.  The workshop of his former master was henceforth closed to him, and he no longer possessed even all the tools requisite for the exercise of his art.

Only yesterday he had hoped with happy confidence to establish himself on a footing of his own, to-day this seemed impossible, for the most indispensable means were lacking to him.  As he felt his little money-bag, which he was wont to place under his pillow, he could not forbear smiling in spite of all his troubles, for his fingers sank into the flaccid leather, and found only two coins, one of which he knew alas! was of copper, and the dried merry-thought bone of a fowl, which he had saved to give to his little nieces.