"Tully! Who is that?" asked our hero.
"What, you a half Greek and not know who Tully was! Is this the manner in which Greek youths, or at least youths in Greece, are educated! Is it thus they are taught in Greece, to which we go ourselves for education! In that Greece which has forbidden gladiatorial shows, and diminished the training of the body to have more time for that of the intellect!"
Paulus blushed, seeing he must have betrayed some gross degree of rusticity, and answered,
"I know I am ignorant: I have been so much occupied in athletic sports. But I will give you the promise you ask, and keep it most truly and faithfully."
"I will trust you, then. Go a little, my friend, into the athletic sports of the mind, which are precisely those Greece most cultivates. You are of a great family now fallen down. The muscles of the arm, the strength of the body, a blow from a cestus, never yet raised that kind of burden off the ground. You fence astonishingly well—I noted your parry just now; but the fence of the mind is every thing, believe me. By the way, I see the excellent Piso, whom you hammered down after the parry, as one puts a full stop to a pretty sentence, is being carried into this same post-house."
"By your leave, illustrious sir," interposed the innkeeper, rather nervously, "it is scarcely the custom, is it, to drop guests at Crispus's door, without first asking Crispus has he room for them? The expected visit of the divine Augustus to the neighboring palace of the most excellent and valiant knight Mamurra, in Formiæ, has choked and strangled this poor house. There is no place where the multitude of guests can lodge in the town, so they come hither, as to a spot at a convenient distance. Troops of players, troops of gladiators, troops of fortune-tellers, troops of geese, pigs, beeves, attagens, alive and dead, night and day, for the last week, with mighty personages from a distance, make the road noisy, I assure you, even after my house is full. I believe they would wish me to put up the very oxen intended for sacrifice."
"Have you no chambers whatever vacant?" asked Velleius.
"I did not say that, most excellent sir; vacant is one thing, disengaged is another. I have received an express letter from Brundusium, to say that a certain queen out of the East, with her son and her train, are coming to pay their homage to the emperor: and here we have already the servants of that Jew king, as they say, one King Alexander, who wants his cause to be heard and his title settled by Augustus himself, and I am obliged to listen to loud outcries that he, too, must have apartments."
At this moment, the travelling carriage carrying poor Agatha and her mother had been drawn nearly opposite to the porch, but a little in rear of the tribune, so as not to intercept his conversation with the innkeeper. Paterculus threw a quick glance at the beautiful pallid face of the girl, and the anxious and frightened look of her mother.
"By what you tell me, worthy Crispus," he replied, "you are so far from having your justly celebrated house full, that you are keeping two sets of apartments still vacant, in expectation, first, of some queen from the east, with her son and train, and secondly, of this Jewish king, one Alexander. Worthy Libertinus,[30] the fair damsel whom you see so pale, is very sick, and has just swooned away from sheer fatigue. Will you turn such a daughter in such health, with her noble mother, from your door? A queen can take care of herself, it seems to me. But what will become of these excellent Roman ladies, (your own countrywomen,) if you now bid them begone from your threshold? You have assured me that they can obtain no shelter at all in Formiæ. Look at the child! She seems likely to faint again. Are you to let this daughter of a Roman knight die in the fields, in order that you may have room for a barbarian queen? You have a daughter of your own, I am told."