It will hardly be seen in the half-dark tomb, and how few will ever go to see it! None but a Seleukus can afford to employ so costly a brush as your brother's is--thank the Muses! But the second portrait is quite another thing, for that may chance to be hung next a picture by Apelles; and it must restore to the parents so much of their lost child as it lies in my power to give them.

So, on my way, I made up my mind to begin the copy at once by lamp-light, for it must be ready by to-morrow night at latest.
"I hurried to my work-room, and my slave placed the picture on an easel, while I welcomed my brother Philip who had come to see me, and who had lighted a lamp, and of course had brought a book.

He was so absorbed in it that he did not observe that I had come in till I addressed him.

Then I told him whence I came and what had happened, and he thought it all very strange and interesting.
"He was as usual rather hurried and hesitating, not quite clear, but understanding it all.

Then he began telling me something about a philosopher who has just come to the front, a porter by trade, from whom he had heard sundry wonders, and it was not till Syrus brought me in a supper of oysters--for I could still eat nothing more solid--that he asked to see the portrait.
"I pointed to the easel, and watched him; for the harder he is to please, the more I value his opinion.