ha!" answered Jucundus, "right! Jove help the
lad! by all manner of means. Of course, you have a right to go _in malam
rem_ in whatever way you please."

"I am my own master," said Juba; "my father was a Christian. I suppose it
depends on myself to follow him or not, according to my fancy, and as long
as I think fit."

"Fancy! think fit!" answered Jucundus, "you pompous little mule! Yes, go
and be a Christian, my dear child, as your doting father went. Go, like
him, to the priest of their mysteries; be spit on, stripped, dipped; feed
on little boys' marrow and brains; worship the ass; and learn all the foul
magic of the sect. And then be delated and taken up, and torn to shreds on
the rack, or thrown to the lions and so go to Tartarus, if Tartarus there
be, in the way you think fit. You'll harm none but yourself, my boy. I
don't fear such as you, but the deeper heads."

Juba stood up with a look of offended dignity, and, as on former
occasions, tossed the head which had been by implication disparaged. "I
despise you," he said.

"Well, but you are hard on the Christians," said Aristo. "I have heard
them maintain that their superstition, if adopted, would be the salvation
of Rome. They maintain that the old religion is gone or going out; that
something new is wanted to keep the empire together; and that their
worship is just fitted to the times."

"All I say to the vipers," said Jucundus, "is, 'Let well alone. We did
well enough without you; we did well enough till you sprang up.' A plague
on their insolence; as if Jew or Egyptian could do aught for us when Numa
and the Sibyl fail. That is what I say, Let Rome be true to herself and
nothing can harm her; let her shift her foundation, and I would not buy
her for this water-melon," he said, taking a suck at it. "Rome alone can
harm Rome. Recollect old Horace, 'Suis et ipsa Roma viribus ruit.' He was
a prophet. If she falls, it is by her own hand."

"I agree," said Cornelius; "certainly, to set up any new worship is
treason; not a doubt of it. The gods keep us from such ingratitude! We
have grown great by means of them, and they are part and parcel of the law
of Rome. But there is no great chance of our forgetting this; Decius
won't; that's a fact. You will see. Time will show; perhaps to-morrow,
perhaps next day," he added, mysteriously.

"Why in the world should you have this frantic dread of these poor
scarecrows of Christians," said Aristo, "all because they hold