said the nephew almost sternly.

Jucundus cut him short. "Agellius!" he said, "you must not say that in
this house. You shall not use that language under my roof. I'll not put up
with it, I tell you. Take your treason elsewhere.... This accursed
obstinacy!" he said to himself; "but I must take care what I am doing;"
then aloud, "Well, we both of us have been railing; no good comes of
railing; railing is not argument. But now, I say, do be sensible, if you
can. Is not the imperial government in earnest now? better late than
never, but it is now in earnest. And now mark my words, by this day five
years, five years at the utmost,--I say by this day five years there will
not be a single ragamuffin Christian in the whole Roman world." And he
looked fierce. "Ye gods! Rome, Rome has swept from the earth by her very
breath conspiracies, confederacies, plots against her, without ever
failing; she will do so now with this contemptible, Jew-begotten foe."

"In what are we enemies to Rome, Jucundus?" said Agellius; "why will you
always take it for granted?"

"Take it for granted!" answered he, "is it not on the face of the matter?
I suppose _they_ are enemies to a state, whom the state _calls_ its
enemies. Besides, why a pother of words? Swear by the genius of the
emperor, invoke the Dea Roma, sacrifice to Jove; no, not a bit of it, not
a whisper, not a sign, not a grain of incense. You go out of your way to
insult us; and then you come with a grave face, and say you are loyal. You
kick our shins, and you wish us to kiss you on both cheeks for it. A few
harmless ceremonies; we are not entrapping you; we are not using your
words against yourselves; we tell you the meaning beforehand, the whole
meaning of them. It is not as if we tied you to the belief of the nursery:
we don't say, 'If you burn incense, you profess to believe that old
Jupiter is shivering atop of Olympus;' we don't say, 'You swear by the
genius of Caesar, therefore he has a genius, black, or white, or piebald,'
No, we give you the meaning of the act; it is a mere expression of loyalty
to the empire. If then you won't do it, you confess yourself _ipso facto_
disloyal. It is incomprehensible." And he had become quite red.

"My dear uncle," said Agellius, "I give you my solemn word, that the
people whom you so detest do pray for the welfare of the imperial power
continually, as a matter of duty and as a matter of interest."

"Pray! pray! fudge and nonsense!" cried Ju