t hardly had
his eye dwelt on it, for a moment, when he cried, "but this is not
yours--this is--where got you this, Arvina?"

"Nay, it is nought to thee; perhaps I bought it, perhaps it was given to
me; do thou only fit it with a scabbard."

"Buy it thou didst not, Paullus, I'll be sworn; and I think it was never
given thee; and, see, see here, what is this I--there has been blood on the
blade!"

"Folly!" exclaimed the young man, turning first very red and then pale, so
that his comrades gazed on him with wonder, "folly, I say. It is not
blood, but water that has dimmed its shine;--and how knowest thou that I
did not buy it?"

"How do I know it?--thus," answered the artizan, drawing from a cupboard
under his counter, a weapon precisely the facsimile in every respect of
that in his hand: "There never were but two of these made, and I made
them; the scabbard of this will fit that; see how the very chased work
fits! I sold this, but not to you, Arvina; and I do not believe that it
was given to you."

"Filth that thou art, and carrion!" exclaimed the young man fiercely,
striking his hand with violence upon the counter, "darest thou brave a
nobleman? I tell thee, I doubt not at all that there be twenty such in
every cutler's shop in Rome!--but to whom did'st thou sell this, that thou
art so certain?"

"Paullus Caecilius," replied the mechanic gravely but respectfully, "I
brave no man, least of all a patrician; but mark my words--I did sell this
dagger; here is my own mark on its back; if it was given to thee, thou
must needs know the giver; for the rest, this _is_ blood that has dimmed
it, and not water; you cannot deceive me in the matter; and I would warn
you, youth,--noble as you are, and plebeian I,--that there are laws in Rome,
one of them called CORNELIA DE SICARIIS, which you were best take care
that you know not more nearly. Meantime, you can take this scabbard if you
will," handing to him, as he spoke, the sheath of the second weapon; "the
price is one sestertium; it is the finest silver, chased as you see, and
overlaid with pure gold."

"Thou hast the money," returned Paullus, casting down on the counter
several golden coins, stamped with a helmed head of Mars, and an eagle on
the reverse, grasping a thunderbolt in its talons--"and the sheath is mine.
Then thou wilt not disclose to whom it was sold?"

"Why should I, since thou knowest without telling?"

"Wilt thou, or not?"

"Not to thee, Paullus."