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Every letter from New Orleans we got two or three a month gave me a fit of homesickness; and when it was definitely settled that my father and mother were to remain in the South another twelvemonth, I resolved to go to them. Since Binny Wallace's death, Pepper Whitcomb had been my fidus Achates; we occupied desks near each other at school, and were always together in play hours.
In those days did a German trading-vessel in the Islands sight a white-painted brig with yacht-like lines and carrying Cunningham's patent topsails, the Teutonic skipper cracked on all his ship could stagger under, and thanked heaven when he saw the stranger hull-down; for Bully, with his fidus achates, the almost equally notorious Captain Ben Peese, had a penchant for boarding Dutchmen and asking for a look at their chronometers, and in his absent-minded way, taking these latter away with him.
"Now don't get angry, my dear, it's only our fun, and besides it's not English, it's Latin ... bonus ... Latinus ... ancestribus ... the good Latin of our ancestors!... the Latin of the Kitchen! Cuisinus ... autobus ... understand?" Turning to the journalist he stretched out his hand: "Well, my old friend Achates, I'm jolly glad to meet you."
So, among the philosophers, Zoroaster took Arimaspes for the companion of his travels; Aesculapius, Mercury; Orpheus, Musaeus; Pythagoras, Aglaophemus; and, among princes and warriors, Hercules in his most difficult achievements had his singular friend Theseus; Ulysses, Diomedes; Aeneas, Achates. You followed their examples, and came under the conduct of an illustrious lantern.
His FIDUS ACHATES, guessing his difficulty, sprang up, took it from him, and laid it on the table. Boyce turned to him with his charming smile and said: "Thanks, old man." Again the tumult broke out. Men cheered and women wept and waved wet handkerchiefs. And he stood smiling at his unseen audience.
If he lacked the fire and buoyancy which had made association with Stuart Farquaharson a thing of light and color and sparkle, so did her whole life lack that fire in these gray days. So did she herself lack it, she told herself wistfully. At all events he came nearer being fides Achates than any one else.
"You're thinking of the faithful Achates, Jim," replied Paul, "and Æneas was the name of the big one to whom he was faithful." "Yes, that's the feller. Henry, you're our Æneas, an' I'm an Achates; Paul's another, Tom's another and Sol's another.
"One's Fidus Achates, if I remember anything of my Latin, which I don't" the girl spoke in that voice which the man loved best, because it had left off bantering, and become grave with such softness and depth of timbre as might have trembled in the reed pipes of a Sylvan Pan "is one's really-truly friend.
"Good for you, you faithful Achates!" said Lanse. Then he turned to his father. "You haven't told us yet when you go, sir." "If we can, two weeks from to-day," said Mr. Birch. Then he went up-stairs to tell his wife that she might go peacefully to sleep, for her children were ready to become her devoted slaves.
And now, obedient to her words, Cupid went merrily in Achates' guiding, with the royal gifts for the Tyrians. Servants pour water on their hands, serve corn from baskets, and bring napkins with close-cut pile. Fifty handmaids are within, whose task is in their course to keep unfailing store and kindle the household fire.
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