bargain."

"I--I," gasped Keraunus slapping his hand on his fat chest. "I--a--a--
but you shall repent of these words."

Hadrian laughed coldly and scornfully, but Keraunus sprang on Gabinius
with a wonderful agility for his size, clutched him by the collar of his
chiton and shook the feeble little man as if he were a sapling, shrieking
meanwhile:

"I will choke you with your own lies--serpent, mean viper!"

"Madman!" cried Hadrian "leave hold of the Ligurian or by Sirius you
shall repent it."

"Repent it?" gasped the steward. "It will be your turn to repent when
Caesar comes. Then will come a day of reckoning with false witnesses,
shameless calumniators who disturb peaceful households, while credulous
idiots--"

"Man, man," interrupted Hadrian, not loudly but sternly and ominously,
"you know not to whom you speak."

"Oh I know you--I know you only too well. But I--I--shall I tell you who
I am?"

"You--you are a blockhead," replied the monarch shrugging his shoulders
contemptuously. Then he added calmly, with dignity--almost with
indifference: