will have more of my esteem.”  Wanting sadly to get away from him, sometimes I walked on apace, now and then I stopped, and I whispered something to my boy.  When the sweat ran down to the bottom of my ankles.  O, said I to myself, Bolanus, how happy were you in a head-piece!  Meanwhile he kept prating on any thing that came uppermost, praised the streets, the city; and, when I made him no answer; “You want terribly,” said he, “to get away; I perceived it long ago; but you effect nothing.  I shall still stick close to you; I shall follow you hence:  Where are you at present bound for?” “There is no need for your being carried so much about:  I want to see a person, who is unknown to you:  he lives a great way off across the Tiber, just by Caesar’s gardens.”  “I have nothing to do, and I am not lazy; I will attend you thither.”  I hang down my ears like an ass of surly disposition, when a heavier load than ordinary is put upon his back.  He begins again:  “If I am tolerably acquainted with myself, you will not esteem Viscus or Varius as a friend, more than me; for who can write more verses, or in a shorter time than I?  Who can move his limbs with softer grace [in the dance]?  And then I sing, so that even Hermogenes may envy.”

Here there was an opportunity of interrupting him.  “Have you a mother, [or any] relations that are interested in your welfare?” “Not one have I; I have buried them all.”  “Happy they! now I remain.  Dispatch me:  for the fatal moment is at hand, which an old Sabine sorceress, having shaken her divining urn, foretold when I was a boy; ’This child, neither shall cruel poison, nor the hostile sword, nor pleurisy, nor cough, nor the crippling gout destroy:  a babbler shall one day demolish him; if he be wise, let him avoid talkative people, as soon as he comes to man’s estate.’”

One fourth of the day being now passed, we came to Vesta’s temple; and, as good luck would have it, he was obliged to appear to his recognizance; which unless he did, he must have lost his cause.  “If you love me,” said he, “step in here a little.”  “May I die! if I be either able to stand it out, or have any knowledge of the civil laws:  and besides, I am in a hurry, you know whither.”  “I am in doubt what I shall do,” said he; “whether desert you or my cause.”  “Me, I beg of you.”  “I will not do it,” said he; and began to take the lead of me.  I (as it is difficult to contend with one’s master) follow him.  “How stands it with Maecenas and you?” Thus he begins his prate again.  “He is one of few intimates, and of a very wise way of thinking.  No man ever made use of opportunity with more cleverness.  You should have a powerful assistant, who could play an underpart, if you were disposed to recommend this man; may I perish, if you should not supplant all the rest!” “We do not live there in the manner you imagine; there is not a house that is freer or more remote from evils of this nature.  It is never of any disservice to me, that any particular