mps, a slave below, snoring while he
awaited his master's pleasure.

The leech's pretty Greek greeting "Rejoice!" sounded rather like "May
you choke!" as he flung aside his upper garment; and to the old man's
answer and anxious exclamation: "How badly you look, Philip!" he answered
crossly: "Like a man who deserves a kick rather than a welcome; a booby
who has submitted to have his nose pulled; a cur who has licked the hand
of the lout who has thrashed him!"

He threw himself on the divan and told Horapollo all that had passed
between him and Orion. "And the maddest part of it all," he ended, "is
that I almost like the man; that he really seems to me to be on the high
road to become a capital fellow; and that I no longer feel inclined to
pitch him into a lime-kiln at the mere thought of his putting out a hand
to Paula. At the same time," and he started to his feet, "even if I help
him to bring the poor little girl away from that demented old hag, I
cannot and will not continue to be her physician. There are plenty of
quacks about in this corpse of a town, and they may find one of them.

"You will continue to treat the child," interrupted the old man quietly.

"To have my heart daily flogged with nettles!" exclaimed the leech, going
towards Horapollo with wild gesticulations. "And do you believe that I
have any desire to meet that young fellow's sweetheart day after day,
often twice a day, that the barb may be twisted round and round in my
bleeding wound?"

"I expect a quite different result from your frequent meeting," said the
other. "You will get accustomed to see her under the aspect which alone
she can hence forth bear to you: that of a handsome girl--there are
thousands such in Egypt,--and the betrothed of another."

"Certainly, if my heart were like a hunting-dog that lies down the moment
it is bid," said Philippus with a scornful laugh. "The end of it is that
I must go away, away from Memphis--away from this miserable world for all
I care! I?--Recover my peace of mind within reach of her? Alas, for my
blissful, lost peace!"

"And why not? To every man a thing is only as he conceives of it. Only
listen to me: I had finished a treatise on the old and new Calendars, and
my master desired me to deliver a lecture on it in the Museum--if the
school of pedants in Alexandria now deserves the name; but I did not wish
to do so because I knew that the presence of such a large and learned
audience would embarrass me.