"Are you ill?" said Paulus, "or--or--out of your mind? Why do you clutch my arm and look at me in that fashion?" "Too young," said she, rather to herself than to him; "besides, I saw the last act with these eyes. Truly this is wonderful." Then, like one waking from a dream, she added, "Well, if you want lodgings, you shall have them. You shall have the apartments of this king or pretender--the rooms prepared for the Jew Alexander. Come with me at once." And she unfastened the lamp in the nearest sconce, and led Paulus up the staircase. Thus the wanderers, Aglais and her daughter, had the queen's room, with their Thracian slave Melana to wait upon them, while the prisoner Paulus had the king's, to which Crispina herself ordered old Philip, the freedman, to carry his luggage. A few moments later, the innkeeper, who had returned to the more public parts of the house to attend to his usual duties, met Philip laden with parcels in one of the passages, and asked him what he was doing. "Carrying young Master Paulus's things to his room." "You can carry," said the innkeeper, "whatever the ladies require to _their_ room; but your young master has no room at all, my man, in this house. And why? For the same reason that will compel you to sleep in one of the lofts over the stables. There is no space for him in the inn. You must make him as comfortable as you can in the hay, just like yourself." "Humanity is something," muttered Crispus; "but to make a queen one's enemy on that score, without adding a king, where no humane consideration intervenes at all, is enough for a poor innkeeper in a single night. These _tetrarchs_ and rich barbarians can do a poor man an ugly turn. Who knows but he might complain of my house to the emperor, or to one of the consuls, or the prætor, or even the quæstor, and presto! every thing is seized, and I am banished to the Tauric Chersonese, or to Tomos in Scythia, to drink mare's milk with the poet Ovid."[33] "Go on, freedman, with your luggage," here said a peremptory voice, "and take it whither you have taken the rest." "And in the name of all the gods, wife," cried Crispus, "whither may that be?" "Go on, freedman," she repeated; and then taking her husband aside, she spoke to him in a low tone. "Have you remarked this youth's face?" she asked; "and have you any idea who he is?" "I know not who any of them are," replied Crispus. "Look at him then; for here he comes." Crispus looked, and as he looked his eyes grew bigger; and again he looked until Paulus noticed it, and smiled. "Do you know me?" says he. "No, illustrious sir." "Alas! I am not illustrious, good landlord, (_institor_,) but hungry I am. And I believe we all are, except my poor sister, who is not very strong, and for whom, by and by, I should like to procure the advice of a physician."