lip to lip. An epigram against his sacred
person had found its way into the Serapeum, his present residence--an
insult worthy of any punishment, even of death and crucifixion.

When the prefect, with evident annoyance, but still quite calmly, desired
to know what this extraordinary insult might be, Theocritus showed that
even in his high position he had preserved the accurate memory of the
mime, and, half angry, but yet anxious to give full effect to the lines
by voice and gesture, he explained that "some wretch had fastened a rope
to one of the doors of the sanctuary, and had written below it the
blasphemous words:

'Hail! For so welcome a guest never came to the sovereign of Hades.
Who ever peopled his realm, Caesar, more freely than thou?
Laurels refuse to grow green in the darksome abode of Serapis;
Take, then, this rope for a gift, never more richly deserved.'"

"It is disgraceful!" exclaimed the prefect.

"Your indignation is well founded. But the biting tongue of the frivolous
mixed races dwelling in this city is well known. They have tried it on
me; and if, in this instance, any one is to blame, it is not I, the
imprisoned prefect, but the chief and captain of the night-watch, whose
business it is to guard Caesar's residence more strictly."

At this Theocritus was furious, and poured out a flood of words,
expatiating on the duties of a prefect as Caesar's representative in the
provinces. "His eye must be as omniscient as that of the all-seeing
Deity. The better he knew the uproarious rabble over whom he ruled, the
more evidently was it his duty to watch over Caesar's person as anxiously
as a mother over her child, as a miser over his treasure."

The high-sounding words flowed with dramatic emphasis, the sentimental
speaker adding to their impressiveness by the action of his hands, till
it was more than the invalid could bear. With a pinched smile, he raised
himself with difficulty, and interrupted Theocritus with the impatient
exclamation, "Still the actor!"

"Yes, still!" retorted the favorite, in a hard voice. "You, however, have
been even longer--what you have, indeed, been too long--Prefect of
Egypt!" With an angry fling he threw the corner of his toga over his
shoulder, and, though his hand shook with rage, the pliant drapery fell
in graceful folds over his athletic limbs. He turned his back on the
prefect, and, with the air of a general who has just been crowned with
laurels, he stalked t