d tires the team with
pulling which is energy utterly wasted.

"I hold the ideal racing chariot should have a chariot body as narrow as
possible, not much wider than the width of the driver's hips; should have
the wheels as close together as possible, to diminish the drag of one
wheel against the other, should have the axle set as high as can be
managed.

"All charioteers exclaim that such a chariot tends to overset. So it does.
But I never have had an overset and I never expect to overset. I know how
to drive and poise myself so as to keep my chariot right side up, and I
never think of oversetting, I think of winning my race, and always do.

"Anyhow, here before your eyes, is my new racing chariot and of all the
chariots ever made on earth this has the longest wheel-spokes, the
highest-set axle, the closest-set wheels and the narrowest chariot body.
Now I'm going to try it out and show it off."

He did to admiration, amid excited acclaims, his four cream-colored mares
fairly flying along the straights and taking the turns at a pace which
made us hold our breath.

After this thrilling exhibition he came back under the arcade and spoke to
me first.

"Hedulio," he said, "you are one of the most competent horsemasters I ever
knew. What do you think of my idea of the best form for a racing chariot?"

"I think," I said, "that it has all the merits you claim for it, but that
not one charioteer in ten thousand could drive in it and avoid an upset,
sooner or later, at a turn."

"Right you are!" he replied, "but I am one charioteer in ten thousand."

"Say in a hundred thousand," I ventured to add. "For surely you could not
find, among all the professionals in the Empire, any other man to equal
you in team-driving."

He beamed at me.

When we left the Palace Tanno saw me in my litter and insisted on
following behind mine in his until he had seen me out of mine and into my
own house.

There I had a very brief and very light lunch, Agathemer hovering over me
and reminding me of Galen's orders for my diet, so that I found myself
forbidden every viand which I craved and asked for, and limited to the
very simple fare which had been prepared for me.

After lunch I went to bed and to sleep.

I woke soon and very wide awake. When I rolled into bed I had felt so
utterly done up with the excitement of my interviews with Vedius and
Satronius, with the exertion of standing in the Throne-room and through
the Emperor's lectur