that I have not been able to watch for an opportunity of serving
you? Point out to me what I can do for you, what you wish me to do.
Why do you despair, before making a trial of me? Why are you in
such haste to lose both your benefit and your friend? How can you
tell whether I do not wish, or whether I do not know how to repay
you: whether it be in intention or in opportunity that I am
wanting? Make a trial of me." I would therefore remind him of what
I had done, without bitterness, not in public, or in a reproachful
manner, but so that he may think that he himself has remembered it
rather than that it has been recalled to him.

XXIV. One of Julius Caesar's veterans was once pleading before him
against his neighbours, and the cause was going against him. "Do
you remember, general," said he, "that in Spain you dislocated your
ankle near the river Sucro [Footnote: Xucar]?" When Caesar said
that he remembered it, he continued, "Do you remember that when,
during the excessive heat, you wished to rest under a tree which
afforded very little shade, as the ground in which that solitary
tree grew was rough and rocky, one of your comrades spread his
cloak under you?" Caesar answered, "Of course, I remember; indeed,
I was perishing with thirst; and since was unable to walk to the
nearest spring, I would have crawled thither on my hands and knees,
had not my comrade, a brave and active man, brought me water in his
helmet." "Could you, then, my general, recognize that man or that
helmet?" Caesar replied that he could not remember the helmet, but
that he could remember the man well; and he added, I fancy in anger
at being led away to this old story in the midst of a judicial
enquiry, "At any rate, you are not he." "I do not blame you,
Caesar," answered the man, "for not recognizing me; for when this
took place, I was unwounded; but afterwards, at the battle of