s the architect, in order to
discuss his future plans with him, he learnt that he too had quitted
Lochias a short time before, and would not return till the following
morning.

After brief reflection he determined to obey the orders of Papias and
to pack his own tools together. Without paying any heed to Hadrian's
presence he began to toss some of the hammers, chisels, and wooden
modelling tools into one box, and others into another, doing it as
recklessly as though he were minded to punish the unconscious tools as
adverse creatures who had turned against him.

At last his eye fell on Hadrian's bust of Balbilla. The hideous
caricature at which he had laughed only yesterday, made him angry now,
and after gazing at it thoughtfully for a few minutes his blood boiled
up furiously, he hastily pulled a lath out of the partition and struck
at the monstrosity with such fury that the dry clay flew in pieces, and
the fragments were strewed far and wide about the workshop. The wild
noise behind the sculptor's screen made the Emperor pause in his walk to
see what the artist was doing; he looked on at the work of destruction,
unobserved by Pollux, and as he looked the blood mounted to his head; he
knit his brows in anger, a blue vein in his forehead swelled and stood
out, and ominous lines appeared above his brow. The great master of
state-craft could more easily have borne to hear himself condemned as a
ruler than to see his work of art despised. A man who is sure of having
done some thing great can smile at blame, but he, who is not confident
in himself has reason to dread it, and is easily drawn into hating the
critic who utters it. Hadrian was trembling with fury, he doubled his
first as he lifted it in Pollux's face, and going close up to him asked
in a threatening tone:

"What do you mean by that?"

The sculptor glanced round at the Emperor and answered, raising his
stick for another blow:

"I am demolishing this caricature for it enrages me."

"Come here," shouted Hadrian, and clutching the girdle which confined
the artist's chiton, in his strong sinewy hand, he dragged the startled
sculptor in front of his Urania wrenched the lath out of his hand,
struck the bust of the scarcely-finished statue off the body, exclaiming
as he did so, in a voice that mimicked Pollux:

"I am demolishing this bungler's work for it enrages me!"

The artist's arms fell by his side; astonished and infuriated he stared
at the destroyer of