“You and I,” repeated the sick man thoughtfully.  “Yes, each of us has sought his own way, but has enquired only which was his own way, and has never concerned himself about that of the other.  Self! self!—­How many years we have dwelt close together, and I have never felt impelled to ask you what you could recall to mind about your youth, and how you were led to grace.  I learnt by accident that you were an Alexandrian, and had been a heathen, and had suffered much for the faith, and with that I was satisfied.  Indeed you do not seem very ready to speak of those long past days.  Our neighbor should be as dear to us as our self, and who is nearer to me than you?  Aye, self and selfishness!  There are many gulfs on the road towards God.”

“I have not much to tell,” said Paulus.  “But a man never forgets what he once has been.  We may cast the old man from us, and believe we have shaken ourselves free, when lo! it is there again and greets us as an old acquaintance.  If a frog only once comes down from his tree he hops back into the pond again.”

“It is true, memory can never die!” cried the sick man.  “I can not sleep any more; tell me about your early life and how you became a Christian.  When two men have journeyed by the same road, and the moment of parting is at hand, they are fain to ask each other’s name and where they came from.”

Paulus gazed for some time into space, and then he began:  “The companions of my youth called me Menander, the son of Herophilus.  Besides that, I know for certain very little of my youth, for as I have already told you, I have long since ceased to allow myself to think of the world.  He who abandons a thing, but clings to the idea of the thing, continues—­”

“That sounds like Plato,” said Stephanus with a smile.

“All that heathen farrago comes back to me today,” cried Paulus.  “I used to know it well, and I have often thought that his face must have resembled that of the Saviour.”

“But only as a beautiful song might resemble the voice of an angel,” said Stephanus somewhat drily.  “He who plunges into the depths of philosophic systems—­”

“That never was quite my case,” said Paulus.  “I did indeed go through the whole educational course; Grammar, Rhetoric, Dialectic and Music—­”

“And Arithmetic, Geometry, and Astronomy,” added Stephanus.

“Those were left to the learned many years since,” continued Paulus, “and I was never very eager for learning.  In the school of Rhetoric I remained far behind my fellows, and if Plato was dear to me I owe it to Paedonomus of Athens, a worthy man whom my father engaged to teach us.”

“They say he had been a great merchant,” interrupted Stephanus.  “Can it be that you were the son of that rich Herophilus, whose business in Antioch was conducted by the worthy Jew Urbib?”