“Surely, Mr. Sanderson, if you could see the house once occupied by Julius Cæsar, for instance, you would be interested?”
“I don’t know that I would. Cæsar’s dead and gone, and I don’t believe any way that he was as great a man as General Jackson.”
“I see, Mr. Sanderson, you are hopelessly practical.”
“Yes, I’m practical, and I’m proud of it. There’s some folks that can write poetry, and leave their families to starve, because they can’t earn an honest penny. Why, I knew a man once named John L. Simpkins that could write poetry by the yard. He often writ poems for the Omaha papers, and never got a red cent for it. His folks had to support him, though he was strong and able to work.”
“I shouldn’t have much respect for a poet like that.”
“Nor I. He had a brother, Ephraim Simpkins, that kept a grocery store, and was forehanded. John fell in love with a girl and used to write poetry to her. Everybody thought she’d marry him. But when she found that he didn’t earn more’n three dollars a week she up and married his brother, the grocer, and that showed her to be a girl of sense.” When the travelers reached Ceprano, Mr. Cunningham suggested making an excursion to Isota and Arpino.
“At Isota,” he said, “we shall see the falls of the Liris, and at Arpino we shall see the site of Cicero’s villa.”
“Who was Cicero?” asked Amos Sanderson.
“Surely you must have heard of Cicero?” said Walter Cunningham, in surprise.
“Well, mebbe I have. What did he do?”