"No," replied the old woman. "No need for that. I have plenty of
customers and good ears. The slut broke her word with a handsome youth
of the town for the sake of the Roman, and they who do such things are
repaid by the avenging gods." Diodoros felt his knees failing under him,
and a wrathful answer was on his lips, when the huckster suddenly shouted
like mad: "Caesar, Caesar! He is coming."

The shouts of the crowd hailing their emperor had already become audible
through the heavy evening air, at first low and distant, and louder by
degrees. They now suddenly rose to a deafening uproar, and while the
sound rolled on like approaching thunder, broken by shrill whistles
suggesting lightning, the sturdy old apple-seller clambered unaided on to
her table, and shouted with all her might:

"Caesar! Here he is!--Hail, hail, hail to great Caesar!"

At the imminent risk of tumbling off her platform, she bent low down to
reach under the table for the blue cloth which covered her store of
rotten apples, snatched it off, and waved it with frantic enthusiasm, as
though her elderly heart had suddenly gone forth to the very man for whom
a moment ago she had been ready to sell her disgusting missiles. And
still she shouted in ringing tones, "Hail, hail, Caesar!" again and
again, with all her might, till there was no breath left in her
overbuxom, panting breast, and her round face was purple with the effort.
Nay, her emotion was so vehement that the bright tears streamed down her
fat cheeks.

And every one near was shrieking like the applewoman, "Hail, Caesar!" and
it was only where the crowd was densest that a sharp whistle now and then