pleased if you discharge the obligation."--"And I also," said Brutus,
"shall expect that you perform your promise to my friend Atticus: nay,
though I am only his voluntary solicitor, I shall, perhaps, be very
pressing for the discharge of a debt, which the creditor himself is
willing to submit to your own choice."--"But I shall refuse to pay you,"
said I, "unless the original creditor takes no farther part in the suit."
--"This is more than I can promise," replied he, "for I can easily
foresee, that this easy man, who disclaims all severity, will urge his
demand upon you, not indeed to distress you, but yet very closely and
seriously."--"To speak ingenuously," said Atticus, "my friend Brutus, I
believe, is not much mistaken: for as I now find you in good spirits, for
the first time, after a tedious interval of despondency, I shall soon make
bold to apply to you; and as this gentleman has promised his assistance,
to recover what you owe me, the least I can do is to solicit, in my turn,
for what is due to him."

"Explain your meaning," said I.--"I mean," replied he, "that you must
write something to amuse us; for your pen has been totally silent this
long time; and since your Treatise on Politics, we have had nothing from
you of any kind; though it was the perusal of that which fired me with the
ambition to write an Abridgment of Universal History. But we shall,
however, leave you to answer this demand, when, and in what manner you
shall think most convenient. At present, if you are not otherwise engaged,
you must give us your sentiments on a subject on which we both desire to
be better informed."--"And what is that?" said I.--"What you gave me a
hasty sketch of," replied he, "when I saw you last at Tusculanum,--the
History of Famous Orators;--_when_ they made their appearance, and _who_
and _what_ they were; which, furnished such an agreeable train of
conversation, that when I related the substance of it to _your_, or I
ought rather to have said our _common_ friend, Brutus, he expressed a