Page:The White Stone.djvu/94

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THE WHITE STONE

stigmatising them as arrogant and as debauchees, and referring them to the jugglers and harlots who walked past them with undulating hips. Then, baring to the navel his hairy body, and drawing over his face his tattered cloak, he once more stretched himself out at full length on the pavement.

"Would it not interest you," asked Lollius of his companions, "to hear those Jews expound their dispute in the praetorium?"

They replied that they entertained no such curiosity, preferring to stroll under the portico, while waiting for the proconsul, who would, doubtless not be long in coming out.

"I am with you, my friends," said Lollius. "We shall not miss anything very interesting."

"Moreover," he went on to say, "the Jews who have come from Cenchreae to accompany the suitors are not all in the basilica. Here comes one who is recognisable by his beaked nose and his forked beard. He is in as fine a state of frenzy as Pythia herself."

Lollius was pointing with both look and finger at a lean stranger, poorly clad, who was vociferating under the portico, in the midst of a railing mob."

"Men of Corinth, you place a vain trust in your wisdom, which is naught but madness. You follow blindly the precepts of your philosophers who teach you death, and not life. You do not observe the