The Emperor looked at the ground, but hardly had he begun to study the
picture, of which he quite understood and appreciated the beauty, when
just behind him he heard in a hoarse voice these words uttered with
difficulty:

"In Alexandria--it is the custom, to greet--to say something--to the
people you visit." Hadrian half turned his head towards the speaker and
said indifferently but with strong and insulting contempt:

"In Rome too it is the custom to greet honest people." Then looking down
again at the mosaic he said, "Exquisite, exquisite an inestimable and
precious work." At Hadrian's words Keraunus' eyes almost started out of
his head. His face was crimson and his lips pale; he went close up to
him and as soon as he had found breath to speak he said:

"What have you--what are your words intended to convey?"

Hadrian turned suddenly and full upon the steward; in his eyes sparkled
that annihilating fire which few could endure to gaze on and his deep
voice rolled sullenly through the room as he said to the miserable man:

"My words are intended to convey that you have been an unfaithful
steward, that I know what you would rather I should not know, that I have
learned how you deal with the property entrusted to you, that you--"

"That I?"--cried the steward trembling with rage and stepping close up to
the Emperor.

"That you," shouted Hadrian in his face, "tried to sell this picture to
this man; in short that you are a simpleton and a scoundrel into the