s original suspicion, he sat, essaying
complimentary speeches and convivial jests, and moodily gazing from face
to face, in a vain attempt to read their secret thoughts. He was wrong
in his suspicions. Not one of them knew the reason of the burden upon
his mind. All, however, perceived that something had occurred to disturb
him, and his moody spirit shed its influence around, until the
conversation once again flagged, and there was not one of the party who
did not wish himself elsewhere. The costliest viands and wines spread
out before them were ineffective to produce that festive gayety upon
which they had calculated.

'By Parnassus!' exclaimed the poet Emilius, at length, pushing aside his
plate of turbot, and draining his goblet 'Are we to sit here, hour after
hour, winking and blinking at each other like owls over their mice? Was
it merely to eat and drink that we have assembled? Hearken! I will read
that to you which will raise your spirits, to a certainty. To-morrow the
games and combats commence in the arena of the new amphitheatre. Well;
and is it known to you that I am appointed to read a dedicatory ode
before the emperor and in honor of that occasion? I will give you a
pleasure, now. I will forestall your joy, and let you hear what I have
written. And be assured that this is no small compliment to your
intelligence, since no eye hath yet looked upon a single verse thereof.'

With that the poet dragged from his breast his silken bundle, and
carefully began to unwind the covering.

'You will observe,' he said, as he brought the precious parchment to
light, and smoothed it out upon the table before him, 'you will observe
that I commence with an invocation to the emperor, whom I call the most
illustrious of all the Caesars, and liken to Jove. I then congratulate
the spectators, not only upon the joy of living in his time, but also
upon being there to bask in the effulgence of--'

'A truce to such mummery!' cried Sergius, suddenly arousing from his
spiritual stupor and bursting into a shrill laugh. 'Do we care to listen
to your miserable dactyls? Is it not a standing jest through Rome that,
for the past month, you have daily read your verses to one person after
another, with the same wretched pretence of exclusive favoritism? And do
we not know that no warrant has ever been given to you to recite a
single line before the emperor, either in or out of the arena? We are
here to revel, not to listen to your stale ap