wind--he reckoned it was one of the very things they killed Julius
Caesar for; and Cassius, loving Brutus more than a brother, is very
much hurt about it. I can't make out what the trouble really was
about and I don't suppose either Cassius or Brutus was clear as to
what it was all about either. It's generally the way when friends
fall out. It seems also that Brutus thinks that Cassius refused to
lend him a few quid to pay his legions, and, you know, it's an
unpardonable crime for one mate to refuse another a few quid when he's
in a hole; but it seems that the messenger was but a fool who brought
Cassius's answer back. It is generally the messenger who is to blame,
when friends make it up after a quarrel that was all their own fault.
Messengers had an uncomfortable time in those days, as witness the
case of the base slave who had to bring Cleopatra the news of Antony's
marriage with Octavia.

But the quarrel scene is great for its deep knowledge of the hearts of
men in matters of man to man--of man friend to man friend--and it is
as humanly simple as a barney between two old bush mates that
threatens to end in a bloody fist-fight and separation for life, but
chances to end in a beer. This quarrel threatened to end in the death
of either Brutus or Cassius or a set-to between their two armies, just
at the moment when they all should have been knit together against the
forces of Mark Antony and Octavius Caesar; but it ended in a beer, or
its equivalent, a bowl of wine.

Earlier in the quarrel, where Brutus asks why, after striking down the
foremost man in all the world for supporting land agents and others,
should they do the same thing and contaminate their fingers with base
bribes?