Page:The Anglo-Saxon version of the story of Apollonius of Tyre.djvu/72

 Leno. I will give twenty.

Athanag. And I thirty.

Leno. Forty.

Athanag. Fifty.

Leno. Eighty.

Athanag. Ninety.

Leno. I will give a hundred sestertia in ready money; if any one offer more, I will give ten golden sestertia above.

"Why should I contend any further with Leno?" thought Athanagoras: "I may purchase a dozen for the price she will cost him. Let him have her, and by and by I will enter covertly his dwelling and solicit her love."

Tharsia was conducted by Leno to a house of ill fame, in an apartment of which there was a golden Priapus, richly ornamented with gems.

"Girl! worship that image," said Leno.

Tharsia. I may not worship any such thing. O my lord! are you not a Lapsatenarian?

Leno. Why?

Tharsia. Because the Lapsateni worship Priapus.

Leno. Know you not, wretched girl, that you have entered the house of the miser Leno?

Casting herself at his feet, she exclaimed: "O sir! do not dishonour me; be not guilty of such a flagrant outrage."