‘But where is the archbishop’s house?’
‘Close to the Serapeium. You cannot miss the place: four hundred columns of marble, now ruined by Christian persecutors, stand on an eminence—’
‘But how far off?’
‘About three miles; near the gate of the Moon.’
‘Why, was not that the gate by which we entered the city on the other side?’
‘Exactly so; you will know your way back, having already traversed it.’
Philammon checked a decidedly carnal inclination to seize the little fellow by the throat, and knock his head against the wall, and contented himself by saying—
‘Then do you actually mean to say, you heathen villain, that you have taken me six or seven miles out of my road?’
‘Good words young man. If you do me harm, I call for help; we are close to the Jews’ quarter, and there are some thousands there who will swarm out like wasps on the chance of beating a monk to death. Yet that which I have done, I have done with a good purpose. First, politically, or according to practical wisdom—in order that you, not I, might carry the basket. Next, philosophically, or according to the intuitions of the pure reason—in order that you might, by beholding the magnificence of that great civilisation which your fellows wish to destroy, learn that you are an ass, and a tortoise, and a nonentity, and so beholding yourself to be nothing, may be moved to become something.’
And he moved off.