‘A good name, and of good omen.[34] What are you? You look like a slave. Not a runaway slave, I hope?’
‘No sir,’ said Onesimus, to whom a lie came as easy as to most of his race. ‘I lived at Colossæ. I was kidnapped by a slave-dealer, but I escaped.’
‘And you want to go back to Colossæ?’
‘No sir. I am left an orphan. I want to earn my living here.’
‘Take him,’ said Titus. ‘You have plenty of room for an extra slave, and I like his looks.’
But Pudens hesitated.
‘A Phrygian slave!’ he said; ‘why even proverbs warn me against him.’ He quoted two, sotto voce, to Titus—‘Worst of the Mysians,’ used of persons despicably bad; and ‘More cowardly than a Phrygian hare.’
‘Well,’ said Titus, ‘I will give you proverb for proverb; “Phrygians are improved by scourging.”’[35]
‘Yes,’ answered Pudens; ‘but I am not accustomed to rule my slaves by the whip.’
The boy had not heard them, for they spoke in low tones, but he marked the hesitation of Pudens, and, still crying bitterly, stooped as though to make marks with his finger on the ground. His motion was quick, but Pudens saw that he had drawn in the dust very rapidly a rude outline of a fish, which he had almost instantaneously obliterated with a movement of his palm.