le. The smaller and well-preserved rooms, along this
long passage leading to the steward's house, will do for the pages,
secretaries and other attendants on Caesar's person, and this long
saloon, lined with fine porphyry and green marble, and adorned with the
beautiful frieze in bronze will, I fancy, please Hadrian as a study and
private sitting-room."

"Admirable!" cried Titianus, "I should like to show your plan to the
Empress."

"In that case, instead of eight days I must have as many weeks," said
Pontius coolly.

"That is true," answered the prefect laughing. "But tell me, Keraunus,
how comes it that the doors are wanting to all the best rooms?"

"They were of fine thyra wood, and they were wanted in Rome."

"I must have seen one or another of them there," muttered the prefect.

"Your cabinet-workers will have a busy time, Pontius."

"Nay, the hanging-makers may be glad; wherever we can we will close the
door-ways with heavy curtains."

"And what will you do with this damp abode of fogs, which, if I mistake
not, must adjoin the dining-hall?"

"We will turn it into a garden filled with ornamental foliage."

"That is quite admissable--and the broken statues?"

"We will get rid of the worst."

"The Apollo and the nine Muses stand in the room you intend for an
audience-hall--do they not?"

"Yes."

"They are in fairly good condition, I think."

"Urania is wanting entirely," said the steward, who was still holding
the plan out in front of him.

"And what became of her?" asked Titianus, not without excitement.

"Your predecessor, the prefect Haterius Nepos, took a particular fancy
to it and carried it with him to Rome."

"Why Urania of all others?" cried Titianus angrily. "She, above all,
ought not to be missing from the hall of audience of Caesar the pontiff
of heaven! What is to be done?"

"It will be difficult to find an Urania ready-made as tall as her
sisters, and we have no time to search one out, a new one must be made."

"In eight days?"

"And eight nights."

"But my good friend, only to get the marble--"

"Who thinks of marble? Papias will make us one of straw, rags and
gypsum--I know his magic hand--and in order that the others may not be
too unlike their new-born sister they shall be whitewashed."

"Capital--but why choose Papias when we have Harmodius?"

"Harmodius takes art in earnest, and we should have the Emperor
here before he had completed his sketches. Papias works with th