"Ha! Cicero!" said he, affecting to be much surprised. "Cicero scarcely is on such terms with me, as to take such a liberty, waking me thus at the dead of night."
"It is well nigh the fourth hour, Lentulus."
"What if it be, an I choose to call it midnight? and what, if I refuse to obey such unceremonious bidding?"
"In that case, Lentulus, my orders are to compel your attendance. I have two decuries of men in your Atrium. But I trust that you will drive me to no such necessity."
"Two decuries!" replied Lentulus scornfully. "I have but to lift my little finger, and my freedmen and slaves would kick your decuries, and yourself after them into the velabrum."
The blood mounted to the brow of the young soldier. "I have endured," he said, "something too much of this. Will you go with us peacefully, Lentulus, or will you force us to take you through the street like a felon?"
"Oh! peacefully, Arvina, peacefully. I did but jest with you, my hero. But I knew not that the cavalry of the seventh legion—the legion of Mars I think they call it—had become so degraded, as to do the work of thieftakers."
"Nor I, Lentulus," answered Paul. "But you should know best in this matter. If it be theft for which thou art summoned before Cicero, then are we indeed thieftakers. But if so, not only I believe should we be the first legionaries of Rome so employed, but thou the first Roman Consular so guilty."
"So proud! ha!" exclaimed the haughty conspirator, gazing at him with a curled lip and flashing eye. "Well, I could quell that pride in one moment, with one word."
"Even so proud, because honest" answered the young man, as haughtily as the other. "For the rest, will you clothe yourself at once?—I can wait babbling here no longer."