"Well, you won't tear me asunder on that account," laughed old Mesembrius, delighted with the noble indignation displayed by his guest. He beckoned as he spoke to a Numidian slave who stood near, holding a richly engraved silver basin: "Come, Ramon, fill my guest's goblet."
"No," cried Manlius; "I can fill it myself. I need not be served like Carinus, who is too indolent to hold his goblet when he drinks, and is afraid of wearying himself if he lifts a fig from the dish to his lips with his own hands."
"Ho! ho! Manlius Sinister! You are slandering the Cæsar!"
"Æcastor! It is no slander. Is it not well known that his feet never touch the earth, and that, even in his bathroom, he uses a wheel-chair? To-day he had a ring on his finger and, complaining that he could not endure the burden of its weight, ordered it to be drawn off. Recently he had a notorious forger of documents, who understands how to imitate other people's writing marvellously well, released from prison, and appointed him his private secretary, to be spared the trouble of inscribing his signature with his own hand. Now this cheat provides every document with the Cæsar's name."
"O Manlius! You are saying a great deal about Carinus, who was once your schoolmate."
"I have no inclination to boast of that. True, I often shared my bread with him when he had none, and exchanged his tattered pallium for mine, but I feel no desire that he should ever recognise me, since I might easily fare like the rest of his schoolmates who appeared before him to remind him of former days, and whom Carinus unceremoniously thrust into the 'Tower of Forgetfulness,' to rid himself of the uncomfortable feelings of the past."
"Ah! Manlius, you are talking like Seneca. You will never rise high in Carinus's favour in this way."
"When was that necessary for a free Roman?" cried the knight, raising his head proudly. "I have a sword and a brave heart; if these will not lead me to fame, I want no power which can be obtained by crawling in the dust. It suits only dogs and libertines."
Mesembrius laughed and rubbed his hands in delight; then he urged the youth to drink more, and the wine began to restore to the face trained amid the corruption of Roman society to dissimulation, its real character.
"Go on with your story, my good Manlius; we stopped at the battle of Ctesiphon. That is the enemy stopped there, while you went on as far as you could."