‘“No matter for the clothes,” said the Pater. “They are only the fringe of the trouble. It began before your time or mine. Rome has forsaken her Gods, and must be punished. The great war with the Painted People broke out in the very year the temples of our Gods were destroyed. We beat the Painted People in the very year our temples were rebuilt. Go back further still.”... He went back to the time of Diocletian; and to listen to him you would have thought Eternal Rome herself was on the edge of destruction, just because a few people had become a little large-minded. ‘_I_ knew nothing about it. Aglaia never taught us the history of our own country. She was so full of her ancient Greeks. ‘“There is no hope for Rome,” said the Pater, at last. “She has forsaken her Gods, but if the Gods forgive _us_ here, we may save Britain. To do that, we must keep the Painted People back. Therefore, I tell you, Parnesius, as a Father, that if your heart is set on service, your place is among men on the Wall—and not with women among the cities.”’ ‘What Wall?’ asked Dan and Una at once. ‘Father meant the one we call Hadrian’s Wall. I’ll tell you about it later. It was built long ago, across North Britain, to keep out the Painted People—Picts you call them. Father had fought in the great Pict War that lasted more than twenty years, and he knew what fighting meant. Theodosius, one of our great Generals, had chased the little beasts back far into the North before I was born: down at Vectis, of course, we never troubled our heads about them. But when my Father spoke as he did, I kissed his hand, and waited for orders. We British-born Romans know what is due to our parents.’ ‘If I kissed my Father’s hand, he’d laugh,’ said Dan. ‘Customs change; but if you do not obey your father, the Gods remember it. You may be quite sure of _that_. ‘After our talk, seeing I was in earnest, the Pater sent me over to Clausentum to learn my foot-drill in a barrack full of foreign Auxiliaries—as unwashed and unshaved a mob of mixed barbarians as ever scrubbed a breast-plate. It was your stick in their stomachs and your shield in their faces to push them into any sort of formation. When I had learned my work the Instructor gave me a handful—and they were a handful!—of Gauls and Iberians to polish up till they were sent to their stations up-country. I did my best, and one night a villa in the suburbs caught fire, and I had my handful out and at work before any of the other troops. I noticed a quiet-looking man on the lawn, leaning on a stick. He watched us passing buckets from the pond, and at last he said to me: “Who are you?” ‘“A probationer, waiting for a cohort,” I answered. _I_ didn’t know who he was from Deucalion! ‘“Born in Britain?” he said. ‘“Yes, if you were born in Spain,” I said, for he neighed his words like an Iberian mule. ‘“And what might you call yourself when you are at home?” he said laughing.