"What should prevent your answering positively?"

"Unforeseen appearances in the heavens."

Are such signs common?"

"No, they are rare, on the contrary."

"But perhaps my fortune is not a common one-and I beg of you to calculate
on Hadrian's method what the heavens will predict on that night for the
man whose horoscope my slave shall deliver to you early to-morrow
morning."

"I will do so with pleasure."

"When can you have finished this work?"

"In four days at latest, perhaps even sooner."

"Capital! But one thing more. Do you regard me as a man, I mean, as a
true man?"

"If you were not, would you have given me such reason to be grateful to
you?"

"Well then, conceal nothing from me, not even the worst horrors, things
that might poison another man's life, and crush his spirit. Whatever you
read in the celestial record, small or great, good or evil. I require
you to tell me all."