esist my own will and keep him in the
public service."

"Bravo!" said they all, and clapped their hands.

A strange, inscrutable man was the emperor at that moment, the mildness
of a lamb in his voice and manner, the gleam of a serpent's eye under
his brows. And that right hand of his, clinched now and quivering a
little, had it grasped a reaching, invisible serpent within him?
Kindly? Yes, but with the kindness of a deep and subtle character who
saw in forbearance the best politics and the most effective discipline.
Lights were now aglow in a great candelabrum over the table and in many
tall lampadaria.

A slave, who was a juggler, came near and began to fill the gloom above
him with golden disks. From afar came the music of flutes and
timbrels. Julia retired presently, and returned soon with her pet
dwarf Cenopas. She stood him on a large, round table, and the guests
greeted him with loud laughter as he looked down. He had a hard,
unlovely face, that little dwarf. He suggested to Vergilius unwelcome
thoughts of a new sort of Cupid--deformed, evil, and hideous--typifying
the degenerate passions of Rome. There were in the quiver of this
Cupid arrows which carried the venom of the asp. Some at the table
mocked his grinning face and made a jest of his deformity. When he
could be heard he mimicked the speech and manners of public men.

"A Cupid with a knot in his back," said one.

"And if I were to aim an arrow at you," said the dwarf, quickly, "I'm
sure you'd have a pain in yours."

"My dear," said the gentle-mannered emperor, when the laughter had died
away, "I think we shall now give him the crown of folly and let him go."

"Between the greatest and the least of Romans," said his daughter,
rising and pointing at her father and then at the dwarf, "I am lost in
mediocrity."

A slave took the little creature in his arms and bore him away as if he
had been a pet dog.

"Tell me, young men," said the emperor, "have you no lines to read
us--you that have youth and beauty and sweethearts? How is it with
you, good Vergilius?"

The young man shook his head. "No," said he; "I have youth and a
sweetheart, but not the gift of poesy."

"No lines! What are we coming to in this Rome of ours? Are there no
more poets? My dear friends, tell me, in the baths or the forum or the
theatre, or wherever the people congregate, do you hear of no youth
that has the divine gift of song?"

He paused for a little, but t