XXIII
THE GREED OF GLAUCON
Glaucon had not gone out with the crowd to welcome General Seron. His curiosity for the pageant and his fascination by the Princess were just then secondary to his cupidity. This native trait in his character had been excited into spasmodic activity by a certain discovery. He had spent the day before searching the mansion of Ben Shattuck, that grand house by the Tower of David. With the avidity of an old-clothes dealer he had ransacked chests of the cast-off wearing apparel of dead generations of Shattucks, now and then perforating with his fingers the moth-eaten linings of pockets and pouches. He had tested drawers for false bottoms, and pried into secret closets between walls which the mortar, cracked by sinking beams, had exposed. He had been rewarded by a handful of forgotten gems, but more by a crumpled bit of papyrus in a leathern wallet which he found in the bosom pocket of the shirt which Ben Shattuck must have discarded the very day of his departure from Jerusalem, the journey from which he never returned. This was a letter and read:
"To Hosea ben Shattuck, greeting:
"The business committed to my care has been, I believe, both faithfully and wisely adjusted. It were better for the trade between Sidon and this port if you resided either here or there. There is another reason for your speedy visit, if not abiding sojourn, in Alexandria. The lady to whom I hold that you were legally wedded has given birth to a son. The little lad is sound of limb, of comely face, and, if the midwife's experience pronounce good judgment, the child is of soul as bright as the star that shone the night of his birth.
"I beg that you endeavor to be in Alexandria the eighth day hence, when the child will be circumcised according to our sacred rite.
"I am the faithful servant of the house of Shattuck,
"GIDEON BEN SIRACH."