“Bah! it is the turn of the Petronius Alacinus now, and he will not bestir himself unnecessarily. So long as the public peace be not broken——” “But it was—there was a riot, a conflict.” “A farcical fight with wind‐bags. Not a man was hurt, not a drop of blood flowed. The god will not endure to be balked and his sacrifice made into a jest.” “He is hoarse with rage.” “What does it all mean?” Then said a stout man: “My good friend, it means that which always happens when the priesthood is alarmed and considers that its power is menaced—its credit is shaken. It will ask for blood.” “There has been a great falling off of late in the worshipers of the gods and in attendance at the games.” “This comes of the spread of the pestilent sect of the Christians. They are the enemies of the human race. They eat little children. The potter Fusius lost his son last week, aged six, and they say it was sacrificed by these sectaries, who stuck needles into it.” “Bah! the body was found in the channel of the stream the child had fallen in.” “I heard it was found half eaten,” said a third. “Rats, rats,” explained another standing by. “Well, these Christians refuse to venerate the images of the Augustus, and therefore are foes to the commonwealth. They should be rooted out.” “You are right there. As to their religious notions—who cares about them? Let them adore what they will—onions like the Egyptians, stars like the Chaldeans, a sword like the Scythians—that is nothing to us; but when they refuse to swear by the Emperor and to offer sacrifice for the welfare of the empire then, I say, they are bad citizens, and should be sent to the lions.” “The lions,” laughed the stout man, “seem to respond to the voice, which sounded in their ears, ‘Dinner for you, good beasts!’ Well, may we have good sport at the games founded by Domitius Afer. I love to lie in bed when the _circius_ (mistral) howls and the snowflakes fly. Then one feels snug and enjoys the contrast. So in the amphitheater one realizes the blessedness of life when one looks on at wretches in the hug of the bear, or being mumbled by lions, or played with by panthers.” Perhaps the only man whom the blast did not startle was Tarsius, the inebriated slave, who had been expelled the house of Baudillas, and who was engrossed only with his own wrongs, and who departed swearing that he excommunicated the Church, not the Church him. He muttered threats; he stood haranguing on his own virtues, his piety, his generosity of spirit; he recorded many acts of charity he had done. “And I—I to be turned out! They are a scurvy lot. Not worthy of me. I will start a sect of my own, see if I do not.” Whilst reeling along, growling, boasting, confiding his wrongs to the walls on each side, he ran against Callipodius just as the words were in his mouth: “I am a better Christian than all of them. I don’t affect sanctimoniousness in aspect, but I am sound, sound in my life—a plain, straight‐walking man.”