The latter usually shouted a loud "Joy be with you!" whenever he met the
old man, but to-day answered his greeting only with a sorrowful nod and
low murmur.
The steward had stepped in front of him, laid his hard hand on the
donkey's head, and asked:
"Do you call your ass Semestre?" Mopsus blushed, and answered:
"In future I shall call all she-asses that, but the old Megaera
named this one Jason."
"Why, see," cried the steward, "how kindly the worthy woman remembers me!
But she, too, was not forgotten, for, whenever you lifted your stick, you
thought, I should suppose, of her."
"Indeed I did!" cried Mopsus; then, while stroking the stripes on
the donkey's flanks, added kindly:
"Poor Jason, you too have nothing for which to thank the old woman. If
you only knew how abominable this woman is--"
"I do know," the steward interrupted, "but she is an old woman, and it
does not beseem you to abuse her; she represents the house under its
invalid ruler."
"I'd willingly lay both these hands under his feet," cried the youth,
"but Semestre has driven me out of his service for nothing, away from
here and Dorippe, and where can I find a place in the neighborhood?"
The almost whining tone of the complaint contrasted oddly with the
appearance of the tall, broad-shouldered Mopsus, yet tears filled his
eyes, as he now told the steward about the juggler, the dance, Semestre's
anger, his banishment from Lysander's house, and the house-keeper's
commission to carry a sucking-pig to Aphrodite's temple for her.
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