The stuff of the chlamys, when new, had been a bright violet; now it was a dirty blue, eked out by many patches, and stained with innumerable stains, due to the breakfasts, dinners, and suppers of ten years of the conjugal life of the hard-working Fortunata. In the clean half of the tavern, on a single narrow couch, which was torn in many places, Marcus Scuda, Roman tribune of the ninth cohort of the sixteenth legion, was lolling before a tankard-strewn table. A dandy provincial, he had one of those faces at the sight of which prosperous slaves and second-rate courtesans would inevitably exclaim with heartfelt admiration: "_What_ a handsome man!" At his feet, in an uncomfortable but respectful attitude, a red-faced man sat, panting. His bald head was fringed with grey hair, brushed towards the temples. He was the centurion of the eighth _centuria_, Publius Aquila. Farther off, twelve soldiers, stretched on the floor, were playing at knuckle-bones. "By Hercules!" cried Scuda, "I'd rather be the meanest beggar in Constantinople than the first man in a mouse-trap like this. Can you call this an existence, Publius? Answer me honestly. Is this living? To think that outside barracks and camps the future has nothing in store for one; that one must rot in this sickening marsh without ever catching a glimpse of the world again!" "Yes," assented Publius; "it's a fact that life here isn't precisely gay; but on the other hand, it's peaceful!" The knuckle-bones pre-occupied the attention of the old captain. Pretending to listen to the gossipings of his superior officer, and fully to agree with the drift of his remarks, he followed with an interested eye the game of the legionaries. He said to himself, "If the red aims well, he'll certainly win." However, by way of politeness, Publius asked Scuda, with a show of attention-- "Why, by the way, have you brought down on yourself the indignation of the Prefect Helvidius?" "A woman, a friend of mine, was at the bottom of it, a girl...." And Marcus Scuda, in a fit of garrulous intimacy, confided to the ear of the old centurion that the Prefect, "that old goat of a Helvidius," had grown jealous on account of the special favours conferred on him, Marcus, by a certain frail lady, a Lydian. Now Scuda wanted, by rendering some important service, to win back the good-will of the Prefect; and he had resolved upon a plan.