He knew I'd
think it an impudent lie."
"Don't you believe it?" Agathemer asked, respectfully.
"Well," Tanno drawled, "I've been watching the faces of the audience.
Nobody has laughed or smiled or sneered. I'm an expert on curios and
antiques and other specialties, but I am no wiser on bulls than any other
city man. So I suppose I ought to believe it. But it struck me, while I
listened to you, as the biggest lie I ever heard. I apologize for my
incredulity."
"It would be incredible," said Juventius Muso, "if told of any one except
Hedulio and it would probably be untrue. As it is told of Hedulio it is
probably true and also entirely credible."
"Why of Caius any more than any one else?" queried Tanno.
Muso stared at him.
"I beg pardon," he said, "but I somehow got the idea that you were an old
and close friend of our host."
"I was and am," Tanno asserted.
"And know nothing," Muso pressed him, "of his marvellous powers over
animals of all kinds, even over birds and fish?"
"Never heard he had any such powers." Tanno confessed.
"How's this, Hedulio?" Juventius demanded of me.
"I suppose," I said, "that Tanno and I have mostly been together at Rome.
Animals are scarcer there than in the country and human beings more
plentiful.
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