ason there was not
one perhaps of all the servants of the Emperor who performed with more
exactness the affairs entrusted to him. He had many times incurred the
displeasure of Aurelian, and his just rebuke for acts of rapacity and
extortion, by which, never the empire, but his own fortune was profited;
but, so deep and raging was his thirst of gold, that it had no other
effect than to restrain for a season a passion which was destined, in
its further indulgence, to destroy both master and servant.

Aurelian had scarcely arrived at the camp without the walls of
Byzantium, and was engaged in the final arrangements of the army
previous to the departure for Syria--oppressed and often irritated by
the variety and weight of the duties which claimed his care--when, about
the hour of noon, as he was sitting in his tent, he was informed, "that
one from Rome with pressing business craved to be heard of the
Emperor."

He was ordered to approach.

'And why,' said Aurelian, as the stranger entered, have you sped in such
haste from Rome to seek me?'

'Great Caesar, I have come for justice!'

'Is not justice well administered in the courts of Rome, that thou must
pursue me here, even to the gates of Byzantium?'

'None can complain,' replied the Roman, 'that justice hath been withheld
from the humblest since the reign of Aurelian--'

'How then,' interrupted Aurelian, 'how is it that thou comest hither?
Quick! let us know thy matter?'

'To have held back,' the man replied, 'till the return of the army from
its present expedition, and the law could be enforced, were to me more
than ruin.'

'What, knave, has the army to do with thee, or thou with it? Thy matter,
quick, I say.'

'Great Caesar,' rejoined the other, 'I am the builder of this tent. And
from my workshops came all these various furnishings, of the true and
full value of all of which I have been defrauded--'

'By whom?'

'By one near the Emperor, Menestheus the noble secretary.'

'Menestheus! Make out the case, and, by the great god of Light, he shall
answer it. Be it but a farthing he hath wronged thee of, and he shall
answer it. Menestheus?'

'Yes, great Emperor, Menestheus. It was thus. When the work he spoke for
was done and fairly delivered to his hands, agreeing to the value of an
obolus and the measure of a hair, with the strict commands he gave,
what does he when he sees it, but fall into a rage and swear that 'tis
not so--that the stuff is poor, the f