"And what became of her?" asked Titianus, not without excitement.
"Your predecessor, the prefect Haterius Nepos, took a particular fancy to it and carried it with him to Rome."
"Why Urania of all others?" cried Titianus angrily. She, above all, ought not to be missing from the hall of audience of Caesar the pontiff of heaven! What is to be done?"
"It will be difficult to find an Urania ready-made as tall as her sisters, and we have no time to search one out, a new one must be made."
"In eight days?"
"And eight nights."
"But my good friend, only to get the marble—"
"Who thinks of marble? Papias will make us one of straw, rags and gypsum—I know his magic hand—and in order that the others may not be too unlike their new-born sister they shall be whitewashed."
"Capital—but why choose Papias when we have Harmodius?"
"Harmodius takes art in earnest, and we should have the Emperor here before he had completed his sketches. Papias works with thirty assistants at anything that is ordered of him, so long as it brings him money. His last things certainly amaze me, particularly the Hygyeia for Dositheus the Jew, and the bust of Plutarch put up in the Caesareum. they are full of grace and power. But who can distinguish what is his work and what that of his scholars? Enough, he knows how things should be done; and if a good sum is to be got by it he will hew you out a whole sea-fight in marble in five days."