proved to be unspeakable.

"And now," said Plotinus, who with all his mysticism was so good a man of
business that, as his biographers acquaint us, he was in special request as
a trustee, "and now, concerning this roll of thine. Is it possible that the
accounts connected with the installation of a few abstemious lovers of
wisdom can have swollen to such a prodigous bulk? But indeed, why few?
Peradventure all the philosophers of the earth have flocked to my city."

"It has, indeed," said Porphyry evasively, "been found necessary to incur
certain expenses not originally foreseen."

"For a library, perhaps?" inquired Plotinus. "I remember thinking, just
before my ecstasy, that the scrolls of the divine Plato, many of them
autographic, might require some special housing."

"I rejoice to state," rejoined Porphyry, "that it is not these volumes that
have involved us in our present difficulties with the superintendent of the
Imperial treasury, nor can they indeed, seeing that they are now
impignorated with him."

"Plato's manuscripts pawned!" exclaimed Plotinus, aghast. "Wherefore?"

"As part collateral security for expenses incurred on behalf of objects
deemed of more importance by the majority of the philosophers."

"For example?"

"Repairing bath and completing amphitheatre."