“You are doing a wicked thing.”
“It’s only business,” shrieked the man; “you ought to be pleased at my giving a beggarly poet like you anything, instead of trying to steal the money I’ve worked for so hard.”
Then the man ran about the city telling all the people that he had done a great kindness to Lanis, and been shamefully treated for doing so. All the citizens, who quite agreed with the man’s way of doing business, fell upon Lanis, and, driving him out of the city, shut their gates against him.
In this way, therefore, did Lanis gain his first experience of the world’s unkindness when there is any question between right and might. Picking up his lyre, he walked on, leaving the city wherein he had been so cruelly deceived far behind him, and as he went he sang sadly:
“In the school of life
Is the lesson taught,
That with harshest strife
Is our knowledge bought.
We are bought and sold
In our joy and grief;