ing a
game, and began to wonder what it could be, since I had never seen
it played before. Then I fancied it might be some celebration
because plenty had returned to the city, insomuch that my father
had bartered the last of the corn he hoarded.

"I grew more and more delighted at the sport. But soon there
advanced an elderly man, who said gravely, 'Thou hast stolen this
child; her vesture alone is worth a hundred drachmas. Carry her
home again to her parents, and do it directly, or Nemesis and the
Eumenides will overtake thee.' Knowing the estimation in which my
father had always been holden by his fellow-citizens, I laughed
again and pinched his ear. He, although naturally choleric, burst
forth into no resentment at these reproaches, but said calmly, 'I
think I know thee by name, O guest! Surely thou art Xanthus, the
Samian. Deliver this child from famine.'

"Again I laughed aloud and heartily, and thinking it was now part
of the game, I held out both my arms, and protruded my whole body
toward the stranger. He would not receive me from my father's
neck, but he asked me with benignity and solicitude if I was
hungry; at which I laughed again, and more than ever; for it was
early in the morning, soon after the first meal, and my father had
nourished me most carefully and plentifully in all the days of the
famine. But Xanthus, waiting for no answer, took out of a sack,
which one of his slaves carried at his side, a cake of wheaten
bread and a piece of honeycomb, and gave them to me. I held the
honeycomb to my father's mouth, thinking it the most of a dainty.
He dashed it to the ground, but seizing the bread he began to
devour it ferociously. This also I thought was in the play, and I
clapped my hands at his distortions. But Xanthus looked at him
like one afraid, and smote the cake from him, crying aloud, 'Name
the price,' My father now placed me in his arms, naming a price
much below what the other had offered, saying, 'The gods are ever
with thee, O Xanthus! therefore to thee do I consign my child.'

"But while Xanthus was counting out the silver my father seized
the cake again, which the slave had taken up and was about to
replace in the wallet. His hunger was exasperated by the taste,
and the delay. Suddenly there arose much tumult. Turning round in
the old woman's boso