"Thank you, thank you, Malluch," he said, heartily, at the conclusion; "you have done well--no one could have done better. Now what say you of the young man's nationality?"
"He is an Israelite, good master, and of the tribe of Judah."
"He appears to have told you but little of his life."
"He has somewhere reamed to be prudent. I might call him distrustful. He baffled all my attempts upon his confidence until we started from the Castalian fount going to the village of Daphne."
"A place of abomination! Why went he there?"
"I would say from curiosity, the first motive of the many who go; but, very strangely, he took no interest in the things he saw. Of the Temple, he merely asked if it were Grecian. Good master, the young man has a trouble of mind from which he would hide, and he went to the Grove, I think, as we go to sepulchres with our dead--he went to bury it."
"That were well, if so," Simonides said, in a low voice; then louder, "Malluch, the curse of the time is prodigality. The poor make themselves poorer as apes of the rich, and the merely rich carry themselves like princes. Saw you signs of the weakness in the youth? Did he display moneys--coin of Rome or Israel?"
"Surely, Malluch, where there are so many inducements to folly--so much, I mean, to eat and drink--surely he made you generous offer of some sort. His age, if nothing more, would warrant that much."
Original article by {website name}. If reprinted, please indicate the source: http://groju.jhgshop.com/news/355b498826.html
