"Aphrodite, or Venus, as you choose to call her, took a prominent part in the Trojan war, the origin of which ten years' struggle may be traced to a certain golden apple." "What an old rag-bag it is!" thought Leander. "I'm only wasting money on him. He's like a bran-pie at a fancy fair: what you get out of him is always the thing you didn't want." "No, no, Mr. Freemoult," he said, with some impatience; "leave out about the war and the apple. It--it isn't either of them as I wanted to hear about." "Then I have done," said the old man, curtly. "You've had considerably more than half a crown's worth, as it is." "Look here, Mr. Freemoult," said the reckless hairdresser, "if you can't give me no better value, I don't mind laying out another sixpence in questions." "Put your questions, then, by all means; and I'll give you your fair sixpenn'orth of answers. Now, then, I'm ready for you. What's your difficulty? Out with it." "Why," said Leander, in no small confusion, "isn't there a story somewhere of a statue to Venus as some young man (a long time back it was, of course) was said to have put his ring on? and do you know the rights of it? I--I can't remember how it ended, myself." "Wait a bit, sir; I think I do remember something of the legend you refer to. You found it in the _Earthly Paradise_, I make no doubt?" "I found it in Rosherwich Gardens," Leander very nearly blurted out; but he stopped himself, and said instead, "I don't think I've ever been there, sir; not to remember it." "Well, well! you're no lover of poetry, that's very evident; but the story is there. Yes, yes; and Burton has a version of it, too, in his _Anatomy_. How does it go? Give my head a minute to clear, and I'll tell you. Ha! I have it! It was something like this: There was a certain young gentleman of Rome who, on his wedding-day, went out to play tennis; and in the tennis-court was a brass statue of the goddess Venus----" ("Mine _ought_ to be brass, from her goings on," thought Leander.) "And while he played he took off his finger-ring and put it upon the statue's hand; a mighty foolish act, as you will agree." "Ah!" said Leander, shaking his head; "you may say that! What next, sir?" He became excited to find that he really was on the right track at last. "Why, when the game was over, and he came to get his ring, he found he couldn't get it off again. Ha! ha!" and the old man chuckled softly, and then relapsed once more into silence. "Yes, yes, Mr. Freemoult, sir! I'm a-listening; it's very funny; only do go on!" "Go on? Where was I? Hadn't I finished? Ah, to be sure! Well, so Paris gave _her_ the apple, you see." "I didn't understand you to allude to no apple," said his puzzled hearer; "and it was at Rome, I thought, not Paris. Bring your mind more to it, sir; we'd got to the ring not coming off the statue."