“My dear Paphnutius,” replied Nicias, who had now put on a perfumed tunic, “do you expect to astonish me by reciting a lot of words jumbled together without skill, which are no more than a vain murmur?  Have you forgotten that I am a bit of a philosopher myself?  And do you think to satisfy me with some rags, torn by ignorant men from the purple garment of AEmilius, when AEmilius, Porphyry, and Plato, in all their glory, did not satisfy me!  The systems devised by the sages are but tales imagined to amuse the eternal childishness of men.  We divert ourselves with them, as we do with the stories of The Ass, The Tub, and The Ephesian Matron, or any other Milesian fable.”

And, taking his guest by the arm, he led him into a room where thousands of papyri were rolled up and lay in baskets.

“This is my library,” he said.  “It contains a small part of the various systems which the philosophers have constructed to explain the world.  The Serapeium itself, with all its riches, does not contain them all.  Alas! they are but the dreams of sick men.”

He compelled his guest to sit down in an ivory chair, and sat down himself.  Paphnutius scowled gloomily at all the books in the library, and said—­

“They ought all to be burned.”

“Oh, my dear guest, that would be a pity!” replied Nicias.  “For the dreams of sick men are sometimes amusing.  Besides, if we should destroy all the dreams and visions of men, the earth would lose its form and colours, and we should all sleep in a dull stupidity.”

Paphnutius continued in the same strain as before—­

“It is certain that the doctrines of the pagans are but vain lies.  But God, who is the truth, revealed Himself to men by miracles, and He was made flesh, and lived among us.”

Nicias replied—­

“You speak well, my dear Paphnutius, when you say that he was made flesh.  A God who thinks, acts, speaks, who wanders through nature, like Ulysses of old on the glaucous sea, is altogether a man.  How do you expect that we should believe in this new Jupiter, when the urchins of Athens, in the time of Pericles, no longer believed in the old one?

“But let us leave all that.  You did not come here; I suppose, to argue about the three hypostases.  What can I do for you, my dear fellow-scholar?”

“A good deed,” replied the Abbot of Antinoe.  “Lend me a perfumed tunic, like the one you have just put on.  Be kind enough to add to the tunic, gilt sandals, and a vial of oil to anoint my beard and hair.  It is needful also, that you should give me a purse with a thousand drachmae in it.  That, O Nicias, is what I came to ask of you, for the love of God, and in remembrance of our old friendship.”