'Oh, there you are, eh?' said Agamemnon, turning round and presenting a forefinger. 'How de do, my love; how de do?' ('I shan't give you another obol!' he said to the driver, who seemed still unsatisfied.) 'So, you're quite well, eh?' he resumed to his wife; 'plenty to say for yourself as usual. Gad, I feel as if I hadn't been away a week--till I look at you.... Well, we can't expect to be always young, can we? So you want to know my little friend here? Allow me to present her to you. One moment.' And bustling up to the chariot, he assisted from it a maiden with a pale face, great, wild, roving eyes, and hair of tawny gold, and led her back to his wife. 'The Princess Cassandra of Troy--my wife, Queen Clytemnestra. They tell me this young lady can prophesy very prettily, my dear,' he remarked. Clytemnestra bowed coldly, and said she was sure it would be vastly amusing. Did the Princess intend giving any public entertainments? 'She is our visitor,' Agamemnon put in warningly; while Cassandra smiled satirically, and said nothing at all. Clytemnestra hoped she might be able to induce her to stay longer, a week was such a _very_ short time. 'She has kindly consented to stay on a little longer, my love,' said Agamemnon--'all her life,' in fact.' The Queen was charmed to hear it; it was so very nice and kind of her, particularly as strangers were apt to find the neighbourhood an unhealthy one. And as Ægisthus joined them just then, she presented him to the King, with the remark that he had been the most faithful and devoted of courtiers during the whole period of the King's absence; to which Agamemnon replied, with the slightest of scowls, that he was delighted to make the acquaintance of Mr. Ægisthus; and after that no one seemed to know exactly what to say for a minute or two. At last Ægisthus hazarded a supposition that the royal warrior had found it warm over at Troy. 'It varied, sir,' said the monarch, uncomfortably; 'the climate varied. I used to get very warm fighting sometimes.' Ægisthus agreed that a battle must be hot work, and Clytemnestra suddenly exclaimed that her husband was wearing the very same dear shabby old uniform he had on when he went away. 'The very same,' said Agamemnon, smiling. 'I wore it all through the campaign. Your true warrior is no dandy!' 'We were given to understand you were wounded,' remarked Ægisthus. 'Oh,' said the King, 'yes; I was considerably wounded--all over the chest and arms. But what cared I?' 'Exactly,' said Ægisthus; 'and, curiously enough, the weapons don't seem to have pierced your coat at all. I observe there are no patches.' 'No,' the King replied; 'so you noticed that, eh? Well, the reason of that is that those fellows out there have a peculiar sort of way of cutting and slashing, so as to----' And he explained this by some elaborate illustrations with his sheathed sword, until Ægisthus said that he thought he understood how it was done.