He was heart and soul with Ducconius all
through the period of the suit. His daughter is married to one of
Ducconius' tenants and his younger son has taken one of Ducconius' farms
since three of his tenant-families died off year before, last with the
plague. This makes old Chryseros Philargyrus by no means a pleasant tenant
for me."
"Old Love-Gold Love-Silver," Tanno commented, "is that a nickname or is it
really his name?"
"Really his name," I affirmed. "His mother was so extravagant and wasteful
that his father named him Chryseros Philargyrus as a sort of antidote
incantation, in the hope that it might prove a good omen of his
disposition and predispose him to parsimony. He certainly has turned out
sufficiently close-fisted to justify the choice."
"I don't understand your talk about tenantry," said Tanno. "Do you mean
you cannot change a bailiff on a farm which you have won incontestably on
final appeal in a suit at law?"
"He is no bailiff," I answered him. "He is a free man, just as much as you
or I. Sabinum is not like Latium or Etruria or Campania, where the free
tenantry has vanished, or like Bruttium or Spain, where there never was
any free tenantry. The free tenantry have survived in Sabinum more
completely than in any part of the world.
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