have to say! But you
are travel-stained and weary. Words will keep while you bathe, and our
dinner is prepared; for I myself have not dined, waiting, as I
thought, for your despatches."

"Your excellency shows me too much courtesy," said Drusus, bowing in
what was, to tell truth, some little embarrassment; "it is not fit
that a young man like myself should dine at the same table with an
imperator before whom nations have trembled."

And then it was that Drusus caught his first glimpse of that noble and
sententious egotism which was a characteristic of the great proconsul.

"To be a friend of Caesar is to be the peer of kings."

Drusus bowed again, and then, with Curio, followed the attendants who
were leading them to comfortably, though not sumptuously, furnished
apartments.

* * * * *

Quintus Drusus in years to come sat at the boards of many great men,
enjoyed their conversation, entered into their hopes and fears, but he
never forgot the first dinner with the proconsul of the Gauls. Caesar
kept a double table. His hospitality was always ready for the people
of note of the district where he happened to be staying, and for his
own regular army officers. But he dined personally with such high-rank
Romans and very noble Provincials as chanced to be with him from day
to day. To this last select company Drusus found himself that evening
admitted; and in fact he and Curio were the proconsul's only personal
guests. The dinner itself was more remarkable for the refinement of
the whole service, the exquisite chasteness of the decorations of the
dining room, the excellent cooking of the dishes, and the choiceness
of the wines than for any lavish display either of a great bill of
fare, or of an ostentatious amount of splendour. The company of
officers and gentlemen of the Ravenna district dined together in a
spacious hall, where Drusus imagined they had a rather more bounteous
repast than did the immediate guests of their entertainer. At one end
of this large hall was a broad alcove, raised a single step, and here
was laid the dinner for the proconsul. Caesar passed through the large
company of his humbler guests, followed by Curio and Drusus,--now
speaking a familiar word to a favourite centurion; now congratulating
a country visitor on his election to his local Senate; now introducing
the new-comers to this or that friend. And so presently Drusus found
himself resting on his elbow on the