They were about to sit down to table when the seventh guest arrived; it was Timon, a young man whose want of principle was a natural gift, but who had discovered in the teaching of the philosophers of his time some superior reasons for self-satisfaction.
“I have brought someone with me,” he said laughing.
“Whom?” asked Bacchis.
“A certain Demo, a girl from Mendes.”
“Demo! What can you be thinking of, my dear fellow? She is a street girl. She can be had for a fig.”
“Good, good. We won’t insist on it.” said the young man. “I have just made her acquaintance at the corner of the Canopic way. She asked me to give her a dinner, and I brought her to you. If you don’t want her. . .”
“Timon is really extraordinary,” declared Bacchis.
She called a slave:
“Heliope, go and tell your sister that she will find a woman at the door and that she is to drive her away with a stick. Off you go!”
She turned and looked round: