That is no sort of a janitor for the house containing
the second-largest private gem-collection in all Rome. Nor any sort of
watch-dog."
"How came the door unbarred?" I wondered, "who showed you up here?"
"I came up alone," said Agathemer, significantly. "I have not seen a human
being except the snoring janitor. This house is at the mercy of any sneak-
thief. But you can return to that later. I have come to tell you good
news. Commodus is dead!"
"Really?" I quavered.
Oddly enough I felt no sense of relief. Before my eyes arose the picture
of Commodus as I had seen him facing the mutineers from Britain before he
condemned Perennis: I recalled how often I had heard said of him that he
was the noblest born of all our Emperors from the Divine Julius down; that
he was the handsomest and the strongest man in any assembly about him,
however large; that in his Imperial Regalia he looked more imperial than
any man ever had: I contrasted his possession of these qualities with his
pitiful squandering of his boundless opportunities, with his frittering
away his life on horse-racing, sword-play and such like frivolities. I
could not think of myself, only of what Commodus might have been and had
not been. I mourned for him and Rome.
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