im_?"

"Answer yourself. My master has been to Agis's pretty place before to see
his cocks. However, this is different. To-day I met Theon."

"Who's he?"

"Agis's slave, the merriest scoundrel in Athens. Agis, he says, has been
prancing like an ass stuffed with barley. He gave Theon a letter from
Democrates to take to your Babylonian opposite; Theon must hunt up
Seuthes, a Corinthian, and worm out of him when and how he was leaving
Athens. Agis promised Theon a gold stater if all was right."

Phormio whistled. "You mean the carpet-dealer here? By Athena's owls,
there is no light in his window to-night!"

"None, indeed," crackled Lampaxo; "didn't I see that cursed Babylonian
with his servants gliding out just as Bias entered? Zeus knows whither! I
hope ere dawn Democrates has them by the heels."

"Democrates does something to-night," asserted Bias, extending his cup for
wine. "At noon Agis flew up to him, chattered something in his ear,
whereupon Democrates bade me be off and not approach him till to-morrow,
otherwise a cane gets broken on my shoulders."

"It's not painful to have a holiday," laughed Phormio.

"It's most painful to be curious yet unsatisfied."

"But why did not you take the letter to the Babylonian?" observed Phormio,
shrewdly.

"I'm perplexed, indeed. Only one thing is possible."

"And that is--"

"Theon is not known in this street. I am. Perhaps the _kyrios_ didn't care
to have it rumoured he had dealings with that Babylonian."

"Silence, undutiful scoundrel," ordered Lampaxo, from her corner; "what
has so noble a patriot as Democrates to conceal? Ugh! Be off with you!
Phormio, don't dare to fill up the tipsy fox's beaker again. I want to
pull on my nightcap and go to bed."

Bias did not take the hint. Phormio was considering whether it was best to
join combat with his redoubtable spouse, or save his courage for a more
important battle, when a slight noise from the street made all listen.

"Pest light on those bands of young roisterers!" fumed Lampaxo. "They go
around all night, beating on doors and vexing honest folk. Why don't the
constables trot them all to jail?"

"This isn't a drunken band, good wife," remarked Phormio, rising; "some
one is sitting on the stones by the Hermes, near the door, groaning as if
in pain."

"A drunkard? Let him lie then," commanded Lampaxo; "let the coat-thieves
come and filch his chiton."

"He's hardly drunken," observed her husband, peering throug