“When can you have finished this work?”
“In four days at latest, perhaps even sooner.”
“Capital! But one thing more. Do you regard me as a man, I mean, as a true man?”
“If you were not, would you have given me such reason to be grateful to you?”
“Well then, conceal nothing from me, not even the worst horrors, things that might poison another man’s life, and crush his spirit. Whatever you read in the celestial record, small or great, good or evil. I require you to tell me all.”
“I will conceal nothing, absolutely nothing.”
The praetor offered Ben Jochai his right hand, and warmly pressed the Jew’s slender, well-shaped fingers. Before he went away he settled with him how he should inform him when he had finished his labors.
The Alexandrian with his guests and children accompanied the praetor to the door. Only Ben Jamin was absent; he was sitting with his companions in his father’s dining-room, and rewarding them for the assistance they had given him with right good wine. Gamaliel heard them shouting and singing, and pointing to the room he shrugged his shoulders, saying, as he turned to his host:
“They are returning thanks to the God of our fathers in the Alexandrian fashion.”
And peace was broken no more in the Jew’s house but by the firm tramp of lictors and soldiers who kept watch over it, under arms.