“They know how to work, and sweat is bitter.  While they are busy they help each other, in idleness they bite each other, like unbroken horses harnessed to the same pole.  The wolf is a fine brute, but if you break out his teeth he becomes a mangy hound.”

“You speak after my own heart,” cried the prefect.  “But here we are, eternal gods!  I never imagined anything so bad as this.  From a distance it always looked handsome enough!”

Titianus and the architect descended from the chariot, the former desired a lictor to call the steward of the palace, and then he and his companion inspected first the door which led into it.  It looked fine enough with its double columns which supported a lofty pediment, but, all the same, it did not present a particularly pleasing aspect, for the stucco had, in several places, fallen from the walls, the capitals of the marble columns were lamentably injured and the tall doors, overlaid with metal, hung askew on their hinges.  Pontius inspected every portion of the door-way with a keen eye and then, with the prefect, went into the first court of the palace, in which, in the time of the Ptolemies, the tents had stood for ambassadors, secretaries, and the officers in waiting on the king.  There they met with an unexpected hindrance, for across the paved court-yard, where the grass grew in tufts, and tall thistles were in bloom, a number of ropes were stretched aslant from the little house in which dwelt the gate-keeper; and on these ropes were hung newly-washed garments of every size and shape.

“A pretty residence for an Emperor,” sighed Titianus, shrugging his shoulders, but stopping the lictor, who had raised his fasces to cut the ropes.

“It is not so bad as it looks,” said the architect positively.  “Gate-keeper! hi, gate-keeper!  Where is the lazy fellow hiding himself?”

While he called out and the lictor hurried forward into the interior of the palace, Pontius went towards the gate-keeper’s lodge, and having made his way in a stooping attitude through the damp clothes, there he stood still.  Ever since he had come in at the gate annoyance and vexation had been stamped on his countenance, but now his large mouth spread into a smile, and he called to the prefect in an undertone: 

“Titianus, just take the trouble to come here.”

The elderly dignitary, whose tall figure exceeded that of the architect in height by a full head, did not find it quite so easy to pass under the ropes with his head bent down; but he did it with good humor, and while carefully avoiding pulling down the wet linen, he called out: 

“I am beginning to feel some respect for children’s shirts; one can at any rate get through them without breaking one’s spine.  Oh! this is delicious—­quite delicious!”