said:

"I thank you, Phorbas. All you say is true. And, any time last year, I
should have sold that janitor without a thought, after your information
against him last January. But, somehow, since the murder of Commodus, yet
more since the murder of Pertinax, I seem less prone to severity and more
inclined to mercy. The waiter-boys deserve flogging, but I cannot harden
my heart and order it. The janitor merits being sold without a character,
after a severe scourging; yet I feel for him, too. I'll give him another
chance."

I could not move him.

I again consulted Galen:

"You are right!" he exclaimed. "A Roman nobleman who hesitates to have his
slaves flogged or sold and merely reprimands them, is certainly deranged.
Any natural Roman would insist on scourgings and even severer punishments,
But his eccentricity is not dangerous to him or anybody as yet. Humor him,
do not oppose his worship of his treasures, but entice him away from them
all you can by devices he does not suspect.

"And let me add, keep away from me, for your own sake. Keep away from
Vedia and Tanno and Agathemer. Do not write letters. True, Julianus has
put Marcia to death and you are rid of a pertinacious and alert enemy. But
he has recalled into favor most of the professional informers who
flourished under Commodus and they are on the watch for victims to win
them praise and rewards. Several of the exiles recalled by Pertinax have
been rearrested and re-banished or even executed since Julianus came into
power. Keep close and beware!"

CHAPTER XXXVII

ACCUSATION

The murder or assassination or execution of Julianus on the Kalends of
June shocked Falco even more than the deaths of Commodus and Pertinax. As
the June days passed I had to exercise my greatest adroitness to keep him
from spending all his waking hours indoors, chiefly in moping about his
collection of gems. I did pretty well with him, for I wheedled him into
going to the Baths of Titus three afternoons out of four, into going out
to dine one evening in three, and I even induced him to give several
formal dinners, each of which was a great success.

But, if I left him to himself, I invariably found him glooming over the
gems which no longer gave him any real pleasure. And I could not blame
him. Indoors one felt reasonably safe in Rome that June, for no residences
had been broken into anywhere in the city, though many shops had been
looted and some burnt. But, in the streets