A smile came to the lips of Petronius at thought of his suspicion of yesterday, that this man might be Eunice's lover.

The man who was standing before him could not be any one's lover.

In that marvellous figure there was something both foul and ridiculous.

He was not old; in his dirty beard and curly locks a gray hair shone here and there.

He had a lank stomach and stooping shoulders, so that at the first cast of the eye he appeared to be hunchbacked; above that hump rose a large head, with the face of a monkey and also of a fox; the eye was penetrating.