"He wants to find a home for them," he added hastily; "he doesn't mind where, so long as it's a happy home." Aymer guarded a smile. Christopher was already notorious for ingenious methods of getting what he wanted. "It would be a pity for them to be ill-treated, of course," he agreed gravely. Christopher shuffled across the floor to the side of the big sofa. "It's rather a happy home here, you know," he remarked suggestively, touching Aymer's arm tentatively with one finger. "I am glad you think so. Do you consider the atmosphere equally suitable for guinea-pigs?" "I should like them." He rubbed his cheek caressingly on Aymer's hand. "May I, Caesar?" "Not to keep in your bedroom as you did the bantam." "But in the garden--or yard. _Please_, dear Caesar." "You ridiculous baby, yes. If you make a house for them yourself." Christopher flew off in a transport of joy to consult with Vespasian, who, from mere tolerance of his beloved master's last "fad," had become the most ardent if unemotional partisan of the same "fad." It was Vespasian who had provided Christopher with more clothes than he deemed it possible for one mortal boy to wear, who taught him how to put them on, and struggled with him figuratively and literally over the collar question. Vespasian's taste running to a wide margin of immaculate white closely fastened, while Christopher had a predilection for a free and open expanse of neck. "Look at Mr. Aymer," pointed out the great general's successor sternly. "You never see him with even a turn-down collar, and he lying on his back all the time, when most gentlemen would consider their own comfort." Christopher, hot, angry and uncomfortable, wondered if Vespasian had insisted on the wearing of those instruments of torture, or if Caesar really preferred it.