pretty head was crowned by a perfect thicket of little ringlets, was just
laying her hand on his arm and saying:

"Nay-that is too much; if you go on like this, for the future whenever
you speak I shall stop my ears with my hands, as sure as my name is
Balbilla."

"And as sure as you are descended from King Antiochus," added Verus
bowing.

"Always the same," laughed the prefect, nodding to the audacious jester.

"Sabina wants to speak to you."

"Directly, directly," said Verus. "My story is a true one, and you all
ought to be grateful to me for having released you from that tedious
philologer who has now button-holed my witty friend Favorinus. I like
your Alexandria, Titianus; still it is not a great capital like Rome.
The people have not yet learned not to be astonished; they are
perpetually in amazement. When I go out driving--"

"Your runners ought to fly before you with roses in their hair and wings
on their shoulders like Cupids."

"In honor of the Alexandrian ladies?"

"As if the Roman ladies in Rome, and the fair Greeks at Athens,"
interrupted Balbilla.

"The praetor's runners go faster than Parthian horses," cried the