saying that it was but the sudden flaming up of the fire that
had been burning on the altar, but which shortly before he had quenched.
'It is,' said he, 'an omen of the flames that are to be kindled
throughout Rome.' This was Curio's communication. Is it not a secret
worth knowing?'

'It tells nothing, Milo, but of the boiling over of the wrath of the
malignant Fronto, which is always boiling over. Doubtless I should fare
ill, were his power equal to his will to harm us. But Aurelian is above
him.'

'That is true; and Aurelian, it is plain, is little like Fronto.'

'Very little.'

'But still I would that, like Gallienus, thou couldst only believe in
the gods. The Christians, so it is reported, worship and believe in but
a man,--a Jew,--who was crucified as a criminal, with thieves and
murderers.' He turned upon me a countenance full of unaffected horror.

'Well, Milo, at another time I will tell you what the truth about it is.
Here we are now, at the shop of Publius.'

The shop of Publius is remarkable for its extent and magnificence, if
such a word may be applied to a place of traffic. Here resort all the
idlers of learning and of leisure, to turn over the books, hear the
news, discuss the times, and trifle with the learned bibliopole. As I
entered, he saluted me in his customary manner, and bade me 'welcome to
his poor apartments, which for a long time,' he said, 'I had not honored
with my presence.'

I replied that two things had kept me away: the civil broils in which
the city had just been involved, and the care of ordering the
appointments of a new dwelling. I had come now to commence some
considerable purchases for my vacant shelves, if it might so happen that
the books I wanted were to be found in his rooms.

'There is not,' he replied, 'a literature, a science, a philosophy, an
art, or a religion, whose principal authors are not to be found upon
the walls of Publius. My agents are in every corner of the empire, of
the east and west, searching out the curious and the rare, the useful
and the necessary, to swell the catalogue of my intellectual riches. I
believe it is established, that in no time before me, as nowhere now,
has there been heard of a private collection like this for value and for
number.'

'I do not doubt what you say, Publius. This is a grand display. Your
ranges of rooms show like those of the Ulpian. Yet you do not quite
equal, I suppose, Trajan's for number?'

'Truly not. But time