"Perchance, some day—"
"Never! Whosoever lends him money pitches it into the sea!"
"Yet the sea hath given up its treasure, at times. But let me trouble thee with a question. What price did the costliest slave in thy knowledge command?"
"What price? A slave? In Rome? Nay, then, let me think. A Georgian female captive of much beauty was sold to Sejanus once for six hundred thousand drachmæ—"
"I speak of serving-men," Marsyas interrupted.
"Nay, then: Cæsar owns a physician worth eighty thousand drachmæ."
"Hath he cured any in Cæsar's house of poisoning; can he speak many languages; is he also a doctor of Laws and a good Jew?"
The usurer shook his head.
"What price, then, should I he worth to Cæsar?" Marsyas demanded.
"Sell not thyself to Cæsar," Peter cried, flinging up his hands. "It is forbidden!"