‘Nothing less, kinsman,’ continued Cestus. ‘The same Balbus whom you knew as my master, was a man of great estates and wealth. I acted as a kind of bailiff for him in Rome, and feathered my nest very fairly indeed. There was a kinsman of this Balbus, a young man, and not very well off as regards worldly goods. In the course of events this person and myself had grown to be very intimate and confidential over various little matters in which I had served him on the sly. He was well born, well spoken, and well dressed—a gentleman born and bred; but, at heart, as great a scamp as any footpad and cut‐throat that haunts the roadside. Being only very moderately supplied with money, in his own right, his mind very naturally dwelt upon the enormous amount which flowed annually into the coffers of his kinsman, old Balbus, my master. It is a weakness of human nature, Masthlion, for a poor man to speculate concerning a rich kinsman. But this youngster had a subtle brain beyond his years, and was not content to speculate. To wait on chance, in his case, was, in all probability, to wait and be no better; for, had he even been the next heir, his kinsman, Balbus, although got into years, was hale and hearty, and as tough as leather. That was bad enough; but what made it worse for his hopes, he was not the direct heir. There was one life between him and what he schemed for. That one was all the more closely and tenderly watched because it was all that my old master Balbus had left him. Of all his family nothing remained to him but this one life—a daughter’s daughter; the mother, the last of his children, had died in giving it birth, and he was left, like an old oak, with this young slip budding beside him. That young slip, as I sit here before you, Masthlion, is the girl who calls you father.’ The potter sat still. His gaze was concentrated with painful intensity on the speaker. His fingers clenched the table like a vice, and his breast heaved and fell in a tumult of emotion. ‘You can easily supply the rest,’ continued Cestus. Masthlion nodded without speaking, and his head fell on his breast. His heart swelled to bursting. He dare not trust himself to open his mouth to utter a sound. If this was true, and he felt it was, the figure of his Neæra’s grandparent rose in his mind’s eye—a haughty, stern, and aristocratical old man, extending a proffered reward and polite thanks with a lofty condescension which could not be mistaken for anything but a final dismissal; and there, beside him, the child herself, in her rich robes, seeming too full of delight at the novelty and pleasure of her new position to think very seriously of her separation from the old. He pictured himself refusing the proffered gold, and turning away to go back to his desolate and darkened hearth, far away and forgotten for ever.