‘Let me see.... No. They may make inquiries there. Drown him at sea. Nobody can ask questions of the sharks.’
‘Foundered between Tyre and Crete, from which sad calamity only one man escaped on a raft, and being picked tip, after three weeks’ exposure to the fury of the elements, by a returning wheat-ship—By the bye, most noble, what am I to say about those wheat-ships not having even sailed?’
‘Head of Augustus! I forgot them utterly. Say that—say that the plague was making such ravages in the harbour quarter that we feared carrying the infection to the seat of the empire; and let them sail to-morrow.’
The secretary’s face lengthened.
‘My fidelity is compelled to remark, even at the risk of your just indignation, that half of them have been unloaded again for your munificent largesses of the last two days.’
Orestes swore a great oath.
‘Oh, that the mob had but one throat, that I might give them an emetic! Well, we must buy more corn, that’s all.’
The secretary’s face grew longer still.
‘The Jews, most August—’
‘What of them?’ yelled the hapless Prefect. ‘Have they been forestalling?’