“Your kindness outruns your judgment, Imperator,” replied Drusus.  “Save repelling Dumnorix and Ahenobarbus, I never struck a blow in anger.  Small service would I be to you, and little glory would I win as an officer, when the meanest legionary knows much that I may learn.”

“Then, amice,” said Caesar, smiling, perhaps with the satisfaction of a man who knows when it is safe to make a gracious offer which he is aware will not be accepted, though none the less flattering, “if you will thus misappraise yourself, you shall act as centurion for the present, on my corps of praetoriani,[155] where you will be among friends and comrades of your father, and be near my person if I have any special need of you.”

  [155] General’s body-guard of picked veterans.

Drusus proffered the best thanks he could; it was a great honour—­one almost as great as a tribuneship, though hardly as responsible; and he felt repaid for all the weariness of his desperate ride to Ravenna.

And then, with another of those strange alternations of behaviour, Caesar led him and Curio off to inspect the fencing-school; then showed them his favourite horse, pointed out its peculiar toelike hoofs, and related merrily how when it was a young colt, a soothsayer had predicted that its owner would be master of the world, and how he—­Caesar,—­had broken its fiery spirit, and made it perfectly docile, although no other man could ride the beast.

The afternoon wore on.  Caesar took his friends to the games, and watched with all apparent interest the rather sanguinary contests between the gladiators.  Drusus noticed the effusive loyalty of the Ravenna citizens, who shouted a tumultuous welcome to the illustrious editor, but Caesar acted precisely as though the presidency of the sports were his most important office.  Only his young admirer observed that as often as a gladiator brought his opponent down and appealed to the editor for a decision on the life or death of the vanquished, Caesar invariably waved his handkerchief, a sign of mercy, rather than brutally turned down his thumb, the sentence of death.  After the games, the proconsul interchanged personal greetings with the more prominent townspeople.  Drusus began to wonder whether the whole day and evening were to pass in this manner; and indeed so it seemed, for that night the Imperator dispensed his usual open-handed hospitality.  His great banqueting hall contained indeed no army officers, but there were an abundance of the provincial gentry.  Caesar dined apart with his two friends.  The courses went in and out.  The proconsul continued an unceasing flow of light conversation:  witty comments on Roman society and fashion, scraps of literary lore, now and then a bit of personal reminiscence of Gaul.  Drusus forgot all else in the agreeable pleasure of the moment.  Presently Caesar arose and mingled with his less exalted guests; when he returned to the upper table the attendants