The usual courtesies, I began To pluck him by the sleeve, to pinch His arms, that feel but will not flinch, By nods and winks most plain to see Imploring him to rescue me. He, wickedly obtuse the while, Meets all my signals with a smile. I, choked with rage, said, "Was there not Some business, I've forgotten what, You mentioned, that you wished with me To talk about, and privately?" "Oh, I remember! Never mind! Some more convenient time I'll find. The Thirtieth Sabbath this! Would you Affront the circumcised Jew?" "Religious scruples I have none." "Ah, but I have. I am but one Of the _canaille_--a feeble brother. Your pardon. Some fine day or other I'll tell you what it was." Oh, day Of woeful doom to me! Away The rascal bolted like an arrow, And left me underneath the harrow; When, by the rarest luck, we ran At the next turn against the man, Who had the lawsuit with my bore. "Ha, knave!" he cried with loud uproar, "Where are you off to? Will you here Stand witness?" I present my ear. To court he hustles him along; High words are bandied, high and strong. A mob collects, the fray to see: So did Apollo rescue me. The Satires appear to have been completed when Horace was about thirty-five years old, and published collectively, B.C. 29. By this time his position in society was well assured. He numbered among his friends, as we have seen, the most eminent men in Rome,-- "Chiefs out of war, and statesmen out of place"-- men who were not merely ripe scholars, but who had borne and were bearing a leading part in the great actions of that memorable epoch. Among such men he would be most at home, for there his wit, his shrewdness, his genial spirits, and high breeding would be best appreciated. But his own keen relish of life, and his delight in watching the lights and shades of human character, took him into that wider circle where witty and notable men are always eagerly sought after to grace the feasts or enliven the heavy splendour of the rich and the unlettered. He was still young, and happy in the animal spirits which make the exhausting life of a luxurious capital endurable even in spite of its pleasures. What Victor Hugo calls "Le banquet des amis, et quelquefois les soirs, Le baiser jeune et frais d'une blanche aux yeux noirs,"