patricians, broke upon him. And
it was with eyes a-sparkle with enthusiasm, and a light heart, that he
reached the Porta Esquilina, left the carriage for a litter borne by
four stout Syrians sent out from the house of his late uncle, and was
carried soon into the hubbub of the city streets.

Everywhere was the same crowd; shopping parties were pressing in and
out the stores, outrunners and foot-boys were continually colliding.
Drusus's escort could barely win a slow progress for their master.
Once on the Sacred Way the advance was more rapid; although even this
famous street was barely twenty-two feet wide from house wall to house
wall. Here was the "Lombard" or "Wall Street" of antiquity. Here were
the offices of the great banking houses and syndicates that held the
world in fee. Here centred those busy equites, the capitalists, whose
transactions ran out even beyond the lands covered by the eagles, so
that while Gaul was yet unconquered, Cicero could boast, "not a
sesterce in Gaul changes hands without being entered in a Roman
ledger." And here were brokers whose clients were kings, and who by
their "influence" almost made peace or war, like modern Rothschilds.

Thither Drusus's litter carried him, for he knew that his first act on
coming to Rome to take possession of his uncle's property should be to
consult without delay his agent and financial and legal adviser, lest
any loophole be left for a disappointed fortune-hunter to contest the
will. The bearers put him down before the important firm of Flaccus
and Sophus. Out from the open, windowless office ran the senior
partner, Sextus Fulvius Flaccus, a stout, comfortable, rosy-faced old
eques, who had half Rome as his financial clients, the other half in
his debt. Many were his congratulations upon Drusus's manly growth,
and many more upon the windfall of Vibulanus's fortune, which, as he
declared, was too securely conveyed to the young man to be open to any
legal attack.

But when Drusus intimated that he expected soon to invite the good man
to his marriage feast, Flaccus shook his head.

"You will never get a sesterce of Cornelia's dowry," he declared. "Her
uncle Lentulus Crus is head over ears in debt. Nothing can save him,
unless--"

"I don't understand you," said the other.

"Well," continued Flaccus, "to be frank; unless there is nothing short
of a revolution."

"Will it come to that?" demanded Drusus.

"Can't say," replied Flaccus, as if himself perp