The most practical combination proved to be a concave lens for the eyepiece with a convex one about thirty inches in front of it. The glass had bubbles, and the image was somewhat distorted. But Padway's telescope, crude as it was, would make a two-to-one difference in the number of signal towers required.
About then, the paper ran its first advertisement. Thomasus had had to turn the screw on one of his debtors to make him buy space. The ad read:
DO YOU WANT A GLAMOROUS FUNERAL? Go to meet your Maker in style! With one of our funerals to look forward to, you will hardly mind dying! Don't imperil your chances of salvation with a bungled burial! Our experts have handled some of the noblest corpses in Rome. Arrangements made with the priesthood of any sect. Special rates for heretics. Appropriately doleful music furnished at slight extra cost. John the Egyptian, Genteel Undertaker Near the Viminal Gate
CHAPTER VI
Junianus, construction manager of the Roman Telegraph Co., panted into Padway's office. He said: "Work"—stopped to get his breath, and started again—"work on the third tower on the Naples line was stopped this morning by a squad of soldiers from the Rome garrison. I asked them what the devil was up, and they said they didn't know; they just had orders to stop construction. What, most excellent boss, are you going to do about it?"
So the Goths objected? That meant seeing their higher-ups.
Padway winced at the idea of getting involved any further in politics. He sighed. "I'll see Liuderis, I suppose."
The commander of the Rome garrison was a big, portly Goth with the bushiest white whiskers Padway had ever seen. His Latin was fair. But now and then he cocked a blue eye at the ceiling and moved his lips silently, as if praying; actually he was running through a declension or a conjugation for the right ending.
He said: "My good Martinus, there is a war on. You start erecting these . . . ah . . . mysterious towers without asking our permission. Some of your backers are patricians . . . ah . . . notorious for their pro-Greek sentiments. What are we to think? You should consider yourself lucky to have escaped arrest."
Padway protested: "I was hoping the army would find them useful for transmitting military information."