ere is another door to this Receiving-house? With
your leave I should prefer to go out that way, as my newly acquired
property seems tired, and for one day has had enough of public notice.
You will, I understand, give us a few minutes to depart before you
return to the rostrum, and your clerk will be so courteous as to escort
us out of the Forum. Now help yourself. Man, can't you make your hand
larger than that? Well, it will suffice to pay for a summer holiday. I
see a cloak there which may serve to protect this slave from the chill
air of the night. In case it should be claimed, perhaps these five
pieces will pay for it. Most noble and courteous sir, again I thank you.
Young woman, throw this over your bare shoulders and your head; that
necklace might tempt the dishonest.

"Now, if our guide is ready we will be going. Slave, bring the basket,
at the weight of which you need no longer groan, and you, young woman,
strap on this other basket; it is as well that you should begin to be
instructed in your domestic duties, for I tell you at once that having
heard much of the skill of the Jews in those matters, I have bought you
to be my cook and to attend to the dressing of my hair. Farewell, sir,
farewell; may we never meet again."

"Farewell," replied the astonished auctioneer, "farewell, my lady
Mulier, who can afford to give two thousand sestertia for a cook! Good
luck to you, and if you are always as liberal as this, may we meet once
a month, say I. Yet have no fear," he added meaningly, "I know when I
have been well treated and shall not seek you out--even to please Caesar
himself."

Three minutes later, under the guidance of the clerk, who was as
discreet as his master, they had passed, quite undisturbed, through
various dark colonnades and up a flight of marble stairs.

"Now you are out of the Forum, so go your ways," he said.

They went, and the clerk stood watching them until they were round
a corner, for he was young and curious, and to him this seemed the
strangest comedy of the slave-market of which he had ever even heard.

As he turned to go he found himself face to face with a tall man, in
whom he recognized that merchant of Egypt who had bid for Pearl-Maiden
up to the enormous total of fourteen hundred sestertia.

"Friend," said Demetrius, "which way did your companions go?"

"I don't know," answered the clerk.

"Come, try to remember. Did they walk straight on, or turn to the left,
or turn to the r