"I have met him, of course, but do much fear he would not remember me."

"We may know shortly. Every seventh day this year he has sat, like a
beggar, at his gate asking for alms. To-day we shall see him there."

"It is an odd whim."

"Hush! you know the people as well as I, and he must please them," the
other whispered. "He must conceal his power if he would live out his
time. I will present you, and perhaps he may be gracious--ay, may even
bid you to his banquet."

"A modest home," said young Vergilius.

Now they were nearing the palace of that mild and quiet gentleman whose
name and title--Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus Augustus--had terrified
the world; whose delicate hands flung the levin of his power to the far
boundaries of India and upper Gaul, to the distant shores of Spain and
Africa, and into deserts beyond the Euphrates.

"Many a poor patrician has better furniture and more servants and a
nobler palace," said Appius. "Rather plain wood, divans out of
fashion, rugs o'erworn; but you have seen them. He alone can afford
that kind of thing."

"He has a fondness for old things."

"But not for old women, my dear fellow."

"Indeed! And he is himself sixty-one."