He was left-handed, too."
"How did you know that?" I asked.
"By the way he handled his reins, of course," said Tanno.
"The mare was a magnificent beast, vicious as a fury, with a mouth as hard
as an eighty-pound tunny. He sat her like Castor himself. She pirouetted
back and forth across the road and my fellows scampered from under her
hoofs. The mare was such a beauty I could not take my eyes off her."
"Yes," I put in, "Ducconius has a splendid stud."
"Was he Ducconius?" Tanno exclaimed. "Your adversary in your old law-
suit?"
"His son Marcus, from your description," I amplified. "He is proprietor of
the property now. His father died last year."
"Well," Tanno went on. "You know that look Commodus has, like a healthy,
well-fed country proprietor with no education, no ideas and no thoughts
beyond crops and deer-hunting and boar-hunting, with a vacuous,
unintelligent stare? Well, that was just the way he looked."
"That is the way young Ducconius looks," I rejoined. "He ought to. You
have described exactly what he is."
"Does he know he looks like the Emperor?" Tanno asked, "and how does it
happen?"
"Pure coincidence," said I. "The family have been reared in these hills
for generations, none of them ever went to Rome.
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