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Have you never heard him mention the name of Rev. Mr. Barnes, of Hayfield Centre, Connecticut?" "I can't say I have," answered the landlady. "That is singular. We were always very intimate. We attended the same school as boys, and, in fact, were like Damon and Pythias." Mrs. Flagg had never heard of Damon and Pythias, still she understood the comparison.
Damon and Pythias opening each a vein with some convenient dagger, smearing into the wound some drops of the other's blood, and going home each with a tourniquet above the right wrist.... Well, that was years ago and youth loved such passages! Alexander, by the fire, stooped to put back a coal that had fallen upon the oak boards, then sank again into his reverie.
Of a decent man in Zenith it was required that he should belong to one, preferably two or three, of the innumerous "lodges" and prosperity-boosting lunch-clubs; to the Rotarians, the Kiwanis, or the Boosters; to the Oddfellows, Moose, Masons, Red Men, Woodmen, Owls, Eagles, Maccabees, Knights of Pythias, Knights of Columbus, and other secret orders characterized by a high degree of heartiness, sound morals, and reverence for the Constitution.
The unwounded one not only retarded his, but coming to the rear of his friend, stood with his head down, offering battle. Here indeed was devotion! The sight was, to all three of the hunters, a sublime one. They could no more have accepted the challenge of this brave creature, than they could have smitten Damon at the side of Pythias.
In a few hurried, panting words, Pythias explained the cause of his delay, and, loosing his friend's bonds with his own hands, bade the guards bind him instead.
And since some of the encounters are light and easy, others laborious and difficult, the Delphians offered sacrifices to Apollo the cuffer; the Cretans and Spartans to Apollo the racer; and the dedication of spoils taken in the wars and trophies to Apollo Pythias show that he is of great power to give victory in war.
"By all the decent gods, I would not strain thy courtesy to the point of breaking, but now help thou me. See!" he put his hand on the dice-box again, laughing "See how close I hold the Pythias and their secret! Thou didst speak, I think, of mystery in connection with the coming of the son of Arrius. Tell me of that." "'Tis nothing, Messala, nothing," Drusus replied; "a child's story.
"There was another fellow at Trinity who had been in the Sixth at Eton with me, a year older than I was, a very brilliant man and as hard as nails: Rendell, his name was: an athlete, a tophole centre-forward, with a fascinating Irish manner and blazing blue eyes. To him I told my tale, because we were Damon and Pythias, and I couldn't have kept a secret from him to save my life.
They put their heads together whispering, nodding, and smiling approval. "Damon and Pythias," "Orestes and Pylades," were the names bestowed upon the two friends. But at length courtesy demanded that the audience should give some little attention to the reading of the Greek thesis, whether they understood a word of it or not. Their patience was not put to a long test.
There is no life in the world that tries out friendship like a soldier's in active service, and when it has endured that, it is stronger than the love of twin for twin, like the love of David and Jonathan, of Damon and Pythias, a love that passeth knowledge. The Germans had one ally on the Somme that wrought us more havoc than all his armament. How we cursed that mud!
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