had always needed and wanted, averred that I was already
indispensable and vowed that he could not conceive how he or the Choragium
had ever gotten on without me. Within a very few days he came to my
quarters and said:

"I want you to be contented here. I won't listen to a word hinting at your
leaving. Otherwise I'll do all I can to gratify every wish of yours not
inconsistent with your continuing here and keeping up as you have begun.
Of course, within a few days now, you'll have no such rush of all-day toil
as you have been having. You have been doing in the past few days all the
left-over jobs which should have been attended to since warm weather
began. Once you get clear of legacies from the past you'll find a day's
work can be done in much less than a day and will neither exhaust nor
weary you. Now what can I do to make you as comfortable as possible?"

He had sat down and had motioned me to be seated also. I ruminated.

"In the first place," I said, "I do not want to be made to show off in the
arena before audiences. I am willing to tame animals and to keep on taming
animals, but I do not want to be forced to display my powers before the
populace and the nobility, Senate and court. I have the most powerful
antipathy to being compelled to become a performer as part of a public
spectacle."

"Set your mind at rest," he said. "I give my pledge that, unless my
authority is overridden, you shall not take part in public spectacles
except that you may often have to enter the arena to lead out ferocious
beasts which are not to be killed or which the Emperor, or some of the
courtiers, senators, nobles or populace have taken a fancy to for some
display of courage or craft and have ordered spared. The driving into a
cage or out of a postern of such a beast is generally an irritating
matter, delaying the spectacle and often calling for the use of as many as
a hundred muscular, agile and bold attendants. I perceive that you can do
alone, quickly and easily, what a large gang of eager men has often taken
a long time to accomplish. Often they have to kill a recalcitrant beast. I
feel that I need you for this and I trust that you are willing."

"Entirely," I answered.

"Good!" said he, and resumed:

"Now, what is your next point?"

"In the second place," I said, "I do not want to be pestered with
visitors; nobles or wealthy idlers who take a fancy to me and think they
are conferring a favor on me by intruding on me and was