Since visiting Selene the day before he had given himself no farther concern about her.  She was not dangerously ill and was exceptionally well taken care of, and the children did not seem to miss her.  Indeed, he himself did not want her back to-day.  He avoided confessing this to himself it is true, still he felt lighter and freer in the absence of his grave monitor than he had been for a long time.  It would be delightful, he thought, to go on living in this careless manner, alone with Arsinoe and the children, and now and again he rubbed his hands and grinned complacently.  When the old slave-woman brought a large dish full of cakes which he had desired her to buy, and set it down by the side of the children’s porridge, he chuckled so heartily that his fat person shook and swayed; and he had very good reason to be happy in his way, for Plutarch quite early in the morning, had sent a heavy purse of gold pieces for his ivory cup, and a magnificent bunch of roses to Arsinoe; he might give his children a treat, buy himself a solid gold fillet, and dress Arsinoe as finely as though she were the prefect’s favorite daughter.

His vanity was gratified in every particular.

And what a splendid fellow was the slave who now—­with a superbly reverential bow-presented him with a roast chicken and who was to walk behind him in the afternoon to the council-chamber.  The tall Thessalian who marched after the Archidikastes to the Hall of justice, carrying his papers, was hardly grander than his “body-servant.”  He had bought him yesterday at quite a low price.  The well-grown Samian was scarcely thirty years old; he could read and write and was in a position therefore to instruct the children in these arts; nay, he could even play the lute.  His past, to be sure, was not a spotless record, and it was for that reason that he had been sold so cheaply.  He had stolen things on several occasions; but the brands and scars which he bore upon his person were hidden by his new chiton and Keraunus felt in himself the power to cure him of his evil propensities.

After desiring Arsinoe to let nothing he about of any value, for their new house-mate seemed not to be perfectly honest, he answered his daughter’s scruples by saying: 

“It would be better, no doubt, that he should be as honest as the old skeleton I gave in exchange for him, but I reflect that even if my body-servant should make away with some of the few drachmae we carry about with us, I need not repent of having bought him, since I got him for many thousand drachmae less than he is worth, on account of his thefts, while a teacher for the children would have cost more than he can steal from us at the worst.  I will lock up the gold in the chest with my documents.  It is strong and could only be opened with a crow-bar.  Besides the fellow will have left off stealing at any rate at first, for his late master was none of the mildest and had cured him of his pilfering I should think, once for all.  It is lucky that in selling such rascals we should be compelled to state what their faults are; if the seller fails to do so compensation maybe claimed from him by the next owner for what he may lose.  Lykophron certainly concealed nothing, and setting aside his thieving propensities the Samian is said to be in every respect a capital fellow.”