Roman Gardens, from an old painting.
“What do you want with me?” asked the foreigner, with a look of surprise and scorn at the slovenly dress of Corvinus.
“To have a talk with you, which may turn out to your advantage—and mine.”
“What can you propose to me, with the first of these recommendations? No doubt at all as to the second.”
“Fulvius, I am a plain-spoken man, and have no pretensions to your cleverness and elegance; but we are both of one trade, and both consequently of one mind.”
Fulvius started, and deeply colored; then said, with a contemptuous air, “What do you mean, sirrah?”
“If you double your fist,” rejoined Corvinus, “to show me the fine rings on your delicate fingers, it is very well. But if you mean to threaten by it, you may as well put your hand again into the folds of your toga. It is more graceful.”
“Cut this matter short, sir. Again I ask, what do you mean?”
“This, Fulvius,” and he whispered into his ear, “that you are a spy and an informer.”