"Oh, such times!" he muttered in his beard; "here's this young upstart coming home, and teaches me that such dogs as I put in fetters are better set at large! There'll be a slave revolt next, and some night all our throats will be cut. But it's none of my doing."
"Well," said Drusus, smiling, "I've been interested at Athens in learning from philosophy that one owes some kindness even to a slave. But it's always your way, Mamercus, to tell how much better the old times were than the new."
"And I am right," growled the other. "Hasn't a man who fought with Marius, and helped to beat those northern giants, the Cimbri and Teutones, a right to his opinion? The times are evil—evil! No justice in the courts. No patriotism in the Senate. Rascality in every consul and prætor. And the 'Roman People' orators declaim about are only a mob! Vah! We need an end to this game of fauns and satyrs!"
"Come," said Drusus, "we are not at such a direful strait yet. There is one man at least whom I am convinced is not altogether a knave; and I have determined to throw in my lot with him. Do you guess, Mamercus?"
"Cæsar?"
Drusus nodded. Mamercus broke out into a shout of approval.
"Euge! Unless my son Decimus, who is centurion with him, writes me false, he is a man!"
But Cornelia was distressed of face.
"Quintus," she said very gravely, "do you know that I have often heard that Cæsar is a wicked libertine, who wishes to make himself tyrant? What have you done?"
"Nothing rashly," said Drusus, also quite grave; "but I have counted the matter on both sides—the side of Pompeius and the Senate, and the side of Cæsar—and I have written to Balbus, Cæsar's manager at Rome, that I shall use my tiny influence for the proconsul of the Gauls."