A sudden thought struck Iris.
"Perhaps you would help father?" she said eagerly. "Ah! but I ought not to have said that."
"Perhaps I can help him," replied Phidias good-naturedly. "Anyway, take me to him."
She led him through some side streets into the poorest parts of the city, and stopped before a little window, where a few roughly-wrought images and vases were exposed to view. She beckoned to him to follow her, and opening the door, crept gently into a room which served as their workshop and dwelling-place. Phidias saw a man stretched out on a couch at the farther end of the room, near a bench where many images and pots of all sorts lay unfinished.
"This is our home," whispered Iris proudly, "and that is my father yonder."
The image-maker looked up and called for Iris.
"I am so faint, child," he murmured. "If I could only become strong again I could get back to my work. It is so hard to lie here and die."
Phidias bent over him.
"You shall not die," he said, "if money can do you any good. I met your little daughter, and she told me that you were an image-maker; and that interested me, because I, too, can make images, though perhaps not as well as you. Still, I thought I should like to come and see you and help you; and if you will let me, I will try and make a few images for you, so that your daughter may go out and sell them, and bring you home money. And meanwhile, she shall fetch you some food to nourish you."
Then he turned to Iris, and putting some coins into her hands bade her go out and bring what she thought fit. She did not know how to thank him, but hurried away on her glad errand, and Phidias talked kindly to his fellow-worker, and then, throwing aside his cloak, sat down at the bench and busied himself with modelling the clay.