Plin. Fetch also my boy-scribe. For I should like to dictate something. Give me those reed-pens and two or three feather pens, those with thick stalk, and the sand-case. Bring me also from the chest the Cicero and Demosthenes, and from the desk, the book in which I make all my notes and important extracts. Do you hear? And my extemporaneous MS. book in which I will polish up some passages.
Dyd. I believe the MS. book is not in the desk but in the chest, locked up.
Plin. Do you yourself search for it. And bring me the Nazianzenus.
Dyd. I don’t know it.
Plin. The book is of slight thickness, sewn together and roughly bound in parchment. Bring also the volume, the fifth from the end.
Dyd. What is its title?
Plin. Xenophon’s Commentaries. The book is in finished style. It is bound in leather with fastenings and knobs of copper.
Dyd. I don’t find it.
Plin. Now I remember. I put it in the fourth case. Fetch it. In the same case there are only loose sheets and rough books just as they have come straight from the press.