not to help the miserable old man when his unaccustomed tongue came to
some insuperable difficulty. When, at length, the negro had finished the
pompous announcement, Hadrian said, kindly:

"Tell your master he may come in."

Scarcely had the slave left the room, when the sovereign, turning to his
favorite, exclaimed:

"This is a delicious joke! What will the Jupiter be like, when the eagle
is such a bird as this!"

Keraunus was not long to wait for. While pacing up and down the passage
outside the Emperor's room, his bad humor had risen considerably, for he
took it as a slight on the part of the architect, that he should allow
him--whose birth and dignities he would have learnt from his slave--to
wait several minutes, each of which seemed to him a quarter of an hour.
His expectation too, that the Roman would come to conduct him in person
into his apartment was by no means fulfilled, for the slave's message was
briefly--"He may come in."

"Did he say may? Did he not say "please to come in, or have the goodness
to come in?" asked the steward.

"He may come in--was what he said," replied the slave.

Keraunus grunted out, "Well!" set his gold circlet straight on his head
which he held very upright, crossed his arms over his broad chest with a
sigh, and ordered the black man: