This kindly natured man, who himself saw everything on its best side, thought the whole world most admirably arranged. He believed seriously that all men who had not committed great crimes, and therefore deserved punishment, fared just as well as the very, very wealthy, benevolent, and much praised Decimus Magnus Ausonius of Burdigala (Bordeaux), the delightful city of villas; that they fared as well as Ausonius, who was petted by all who surrounded him, and who in the opinion of his contemporaries--and especially his own--was the greatest poet of his age. Even had this been true, it certainly would not have meant much. This really amiable, kindly man, whose only fault was a little undue self-satisfaction, was now playing the part which best suited him,--far better than that of poet or statesman,--the part of the host who, comfortable himself, desires to make all his guests equally so. His pleasant, cheery, friendly kindness of heart, which would fain see everybody happy, though of course without too much self-sacrifice, found in this _rôle_ its fullest expression. "There! now go, slaves." He waved his hand to those who had again entered. "Look after yourselves--as we are doing. Go, too, my faithful Prosper: take for yourself--and give to the others--the better wine from Rhodanus; you know it. I saw how hard it was to drag the skins up the steep hill. Go: we will serve ourselves." He stretched himself comfortably on the lectus, thrusting under his head a soft downy pillow filled with the feathers of German geese. "Give yonder amethyst goblet to the Tribune, my dear nephew, for our Illyrian Hercules must drink deeply! No, Saturninus, don't take the mixing vessel! The first cup--unmixed. To the genius of the Emperor Gratianus!" "It's lucky that the Emperor himself doesn't hear you," cried the Tribune, laughing, as he put down the empty goblet. "I am neither Christian nor pagan, only a soldier, and nobody asks about my faith. But you! Gratianus's teacher! The Emperor is zealous in the true religion. And you drink to his genius, as though we were living in the reign of Diocletian! Are you a pagan, Prefect of Gaul?" Ausonius glanced around to see that no slave was within hearing. Then he smiled. "If I were a pagan, that is, if I had not been baptized, I certainly should not be Prefect of Gaul. The dignity is probably worth a few drops of water. They did not penetrate my skin. How could a poet forget the old gods?" "Yes, yes, if the learned mythological allusions should be effaced from your verses, the brightest of the borrowed foreign feathers would be plucked from Ausonius's raven." "Tribune!" cried the nephew angrily,--he shouted much louder than was necessary,--"you are speaking of the greatest Roman writer!" "No, no," said the man thus lauded, very seriously, "there are probably two or three greater ones." "Forgive me, Ausonius," said Saturninus. "I understand battles, not verses. Probably it is my own fault that yours don't suit me."