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restrained him. Bottling down his glee as well as he could he said: "Come, Livy, you won't grudge me one little disciple, will you, when you have them in regiments all over the world? Boy, did you ever hear about the old man from Cadiz? No, it's not dirty. In fact. it's rather sad. He came on foot to Rome, what to see? Not the temples or the theatres or the statues or the crowds or the shops or the Senate House. But a Man. What man? The man whose head is on the coins? No, no. A greater than he. He came to see none other than our friend Livy, whose works, it seems, he knew by heart. He saw him and saluted him and went straight back to Cadiz—where he immediately died; the disillusion and the long walk had been too much for him."

Livy said; "At any rate my readers are genuine readers, Boy, do you know how Pollio has built up his reputation?

Well, he's rich and has a very large, beautiful house and a surprisingly good cook. He invites a great crowd of literary people to dinner, gives them a perfect meal and afterwards casually picks up the latest volume of his history. He says humbly, 'Gentlemen, there are a few passages here that I am not quite sure about. I have worked very hard at them but they still need the final polish which I am counting on you to give them. By your leave....' Then he begins to read. Nobody listens very carefully. Everyone's belly is stuffed. ‘The cook's a genius’, they are all thinking. ‘The mullet with piquant sauce, and those fat stuffed thrushes and the wild-boar with truffles—when did I eat so well last? Not since Pollio's last reading, I believe. Ah, here comes the slave with the wine again. That excellent Cyprian wine. Follio's right: it's better than any Greek wine on the market.' Meanwhile Pollio's voice—and it's a nice voice to listen to, like a priest's at an evening sacrifice in summer—goes smoothly on and every now and then he asks humbly, ‘Is that all right, do you think?' And everyone says, thinking of the thrushes again, or perhaps of the little simnel cakes; 'Admirable. Admirable, Pollio.'

Now and then he will pause and ask: 'Now which is the right word to use here? Shall I say that the returning envoys persuaded or excited this tribe to revolt? Or shall I say that the account they gave of the situation influenced the tribe in its decision to revolt? Actually, I think, they gave an impartial account of what they had seen.' Then a murmur goes up from the couches, 'Influenced, Pollio. Use influenced.’ ‘Thank you, friends,' he says, 'you are very kind. Slave, my penknife and pen. I'll change the sentence at once if you'll forgive me.' Then he publishes the book and sends each of the diners a free copy. They say to their friends, chatting at the Public Baths: 'Admirable book, this. Have you read it? Pollio's the greatest historian of our age; and not above asking advice in small points of style from men of taste, either. Why, this word influenced I gave him myself.'"

Pollio said: "That's right. My cook's too good. Next time I'll borrow yours and a few dozen bottles of your socalled Falernian wine and then I'll get really honest criticism."

Sulpicius made a gesture of deprecation: "Gentlemen, gentlemen, this is becoming personal."

Livy was already going away. But Pollio grinned at the retreating back and said in a loud voice for his benefit: "A decent fellow, Livy is, but there's one thing wrong with him. It's a disease called Paduanity."

This made Livy stop and rum round. "What's wrong with Padua? I won't hear a word against the place."

Follio explained to me. "It's where he was born, you know. Somewhere in the Northern Provinces. There's a famous hot-spring there, of extraordinary properties. You can always tell a Paduan. By bathing in the water of the spring or drinking it—and I'm told that they do both things simultaneously—Paduans are able to believe whatever they like and believe it so strongly that they can make anyone else believe itThat's how the city has got such a wonderful commercial reputation. The blankets and rugs they make there are really no better than any other sort,