ame for his folly."

"Well for you, if you be not brought into more than blame! Now, mark me
well! can you prove where you were that night of the murder, excellent
Stolo?"

"Ay! can I," answered the man boldly. "I was with stout Balatro, the
fisherman, helping to mend his nets until the fourth hour, and all his
boys were present, helping us. And then we went to a cookshop to get some
supper in the ox forum, and thence at the sixth hour we passed across to
Lydia's house in the Cyprian lane, and spent a merry hour or two carousing
with her jolly girls. Will that satisfy you, Lentulus?"

"Ay, if it can be proved," returned the Praetor. "And you, Rufinus; can you
also show your whereabout that evening?"

"I can," replied the fellow, "for I was sick abed; and that my wife can
show, and Themison the druggist, who lives in the Sacred Way. For she went
to get me an emetic at the third hour; and I was vomiting all night. A
poor hand should I have made that night at murder."

"So far, then," replied Lentulus, "you have cleared yourselves from
suspicion; but your charge on Arvina needs something more of confirmation,
ere I dare cite a Patrician to plead to such a crime! Have you got
witnesses? was any one in sight, when he spoke with you on the Minervium?"

"There was one; but I know not if he will choose to speak of it?"

"Who was it?" exclaimed Lentulus, growing a little anxious on the subject,
for though he cared little enough about Arvina, he was yet unwilling to
see a Patrician arraigned for so small a matter, as was in his eyes the
murder of a mechanic.

"Why should he not speak? I warrant you I will find means to make him."

"It was my patron, Lentulus."

"Your patron! man!" he cried, much astonished. "What, Catiline, here?"

"Catiline it was! my Praetor."

"And have you consulted with him, ere you spoke with me?"

"Not so! most noble, for he would not admit us!"

"Speak, Sergius. Is this so? did you behold these fellows in deep converse
with Caecilius Arvina, in the Minervium? But no! it must be folly! for what
should you have been doing there at sunrise?"

"I prithee do not ask me, Lentulus," answered Catiline, with an air of
well feigned reluctance. "I hate law suits and judicial inquiries, and I
love young Arvina."

"Then you did see them? Nay! nay! you must speak out. I do adjure you,
Catiline, by all the Gods! were you, at sunrise, on the Caelian, and did
you see Arvina and these two?"

"I was, at