that makes Laurentinum so dear to me. Have you
dined so simply? Your ride has not given you the appetite it gives me.
Fatigue is your true appetizer, and if that fails I cannot hope that
these autumn figs will tempt you."

Our host runs on thus at a great rate, and is evidently bent on
showing us the rest of his comfortable villa before the daylight fails
us:

"So you would see the retreat I claim as my own den? Let us pass back
into the box-alley. The box does not grow well unless sheltered from
the winds and the beating sunshine; so the gaps in the hedge I fill
up with rosemary. You see that the inside of the alley is formed by
vines. The shadowy, tender lawn under them is a pleasant place to walk
on barefoot. The fig and mulberry are the only trees that grow well
here. The garden is backed by two sunny rooms again, and behind that
is the kitchen garden. And here is the long covered way near the
public work. It has twice as many windows opening out as it has
opposite opening into my garden, and on blowing as well as windless
days the shutters are ever open. In front is my colonnade, fringed
with violets. Here is my basking-walk. You see how it shelters one,
too, from the African winds. It cuts off the wind from the other side
in winter. It has advantages both for winter and summer: according to
the season and the shade, you can enjoy the sea-view or can get the
cool of the garden and alley. Then those open windows always keep the
air astir. This summer-like place is my special delight, for I planned
it myself."

And indeed, my pseudo Gallus, let me remark that, being myself a
native of the Mediterranean, I can enter better than you can into the
childish delight that our friend Caius Plinius expresses. It is a joy
which is not to be found in the nature of the American to sleep in the
tropic heats of a July sun. Winter is abhorrent to the nature of every
Levanter. To bask upon the shore of the Mediterranean, with the calm
lazy sea at your feet and the winds cut off from your back, is the
only decent way of hibernating. But this is in your ear as we pass
along, and you will have to repress the smile on your lips or change
it into a sign of courteous pleasure, or he will detect the impostor.

Now then: "Here is my sun-chamber. It looks out on the colonnade, the
sea and the sunshine. It leads into the covered walk by this window,
and into my bed-chamber by this door. But hither. Seaward there is
a letter cabinet on t