'Let us rather examine this rare treatise of Plotinus, which by good fortune I yesterday discovered among rubbish thrown aside.' 'Nay,' insisted Decius, 'but your wound must be washed and dressed; it may else prove dangerous.

I fear this was no accident ?' 'If you must know,' answered the other with good-natured peevishness, 'I am accused of magic.

The honest folk who are my neighbours, prompted, I think it likely, by a certain senator who takes it ill that his son is my disciple, have shown me of late more attention than I care for, and to-day as I came forth, they pursued me with cries of "Sorcerer!" and the like, whereupon followed sticks and stones, and other such popular arguments.

It is no matter.

Plotinus begins--' Simplicius was one of the last philosophers who taught in Athens, one of the seven who were driven forth when Justinian, in his zeal for Christianity, closed the schools.