If you can really accomplish what you seem to believe you can accomplish,
I shall be grateful to you to the last breath I draw. But I am skeptical.
Speak on. Convince me."
"I must first," he said, "have your pledge of secrecy for what I am about
to say."
"What sort of secrecy?" I queried, repelled and suspicious.
"If I am to disclose what I wish to disclose," he said, "you must give me
your word not to reveal by word, look, act or silence anything I may make
known to you, from your pledge until the termination of our interview."
I was uneasy, but curious. I gave my pledge as he asked.
He looked about, warily. He leaned closer to me. He spoke in a subdued
tone.
"It must be known to you," he said, "that many of us nobles, many men of
equestrian rank, many senators, are gravely anxious concerning the
Republic, gravely dissatisfied with the character and behavior, I might
say the misbehavior, of our present Prince."
"I don't wonder that you pledged me to secrecy," I blurted out. "You are
talking treason."
"Hear me to the end," he begged, "and you will find that I am talking not
treason but patriotism."
I grunted and he went on.
"Many of us are of the opinion that the Republic, which was never as
prosperous as within the past eighty years, is in grave danger of losing
much of its Empire, so gloriously extended by Trajan, so well maintained
by his three successors, if it continues to be neglected and mismanaged as
it is.
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