“I regard you as friends,” he said with dignity, “otherwise I should hesitate to show you the palace. There is a sad lack of funds of late—a sad lack! All the Senate’s appropriations are being expended on the new aqueduct, and on new roads 193 through the provinces. The roads hold our great possessions together, and the Emperor’s home can wait. But next year all will be different. Then I shall again plead my case, and money will be forthcoming. This way, please, young ladies and gentlemen. We will first view the grounds.”
His guests in respectful silence followed him down a path toward the creek over which he had placed a little foot-bridge. A fish jumped as they stepped upon the logs, and swam away to the safe shelter of the water-cress.
“The stream is well-stocked with the best of trout,” explained their host. “It is my pastime to catch them in other streams and to bring them here. You remember Horace upon his Sabine farm? Such pleasures as he enjoyed are mine. Yes, there is an abundance of cress. We will wait until later to gather it that it may be fresh and crisp.”
They followed the stream in its meandering course through the fields. Their guide pointed out to them this and that beauty—the fringed gentians in a thicket near the water’s edge; a late wild rose which saw its pink reflection in the still, amber 194 water. It was as though he, aided by the Senate’s money, had laid out the grounds himself, such was his pride in them. Another foot-bridge brought them back to the other side, and to the field-path which led to the house.
The Emperor felt called upon to apologize again before opening the door of the lean-to.
“The Senate still appropriates for conquests,” he said gravely. “I am much opposed. The Empire is large enough.”
They went within. The lean-to was a chaotic place, filled to overflowing with pick-axes, spades, elk-horns, musk-rat traps, mining tools, samples of coal, and curiously-colored pieces of rock. Some skins, stretched on boards, were drying on the wall; some rude fishing-rods stood in one corner. The little room was strangely like the Emperor’s poor, befuddled brain.
The room in the main house was hardly imperial. A small, rickety stove, bearing corn-meal porridge in a tin basin, stood in the center. In one corner was the Emperor’s bed, piled high with skins; in another, a scarred and battered table. Some ragged 195 articles of clothing hung about the room. By the one window was his chair, and on the floor close by lay a soiled and tattered book—Smith’s History of Ancient Rome! The Emperor picked it up eagerly and showed it to his guests.
“I was reading over again all that my reign has accomplished when you came,” he said. “There are the fire department, and the police, and the new roads, and the patronage of poets. I feel encouraged when I think it all over.”
“I should think you would,” complimented Virginia. “And then think of all the things you did before you were Emperor! Think of the early days out here—the Vigilantes and all!”