Part 15 (2/2)

”Friend,” cried a weasel, loitering thereabout, ”Lean you went in, and lean you must get out.”

Now, at my head if folks this story throw, Whate'er I have I'm ready to forego; I am not one, with forced meats in my throat, Fine saws on poor men's dreamless sleep to quote.

Unless in soul as very air I'm free, Not all the wealth of Araby for me.

You've ofttimes praised the reverent, yet true Devotion, which my heart has shown for you.

King, father, I have called you, nor been slack In words of grat.i.tude behind your back; But even your bounties, if you care to try, You'll find I can renounce without a sigh.

Not badly young Telemachus replied, Ulysses' son, that man so sorely tried: ”No mettled steeds in Ithaca we want; The ground is broken there, the herbage scant.

Let me, Atrides, then, thy gifts decline, In thy hands they are better far than mine!”

Yes, little things fit little folks. In Rome The Great I never feel myself at home.

Let me have Tibur, and its dreamful ease, Or soft Tarentum's nerve-relaxing breeze.

Philip, the famous counsel, on a day-- A burly man, and wilful in his way-- From court returning, somewhere about two, And grumbling, for his years were far from few, That the Carinae [1] were so distant, though But from the Forum half a mile or so, Descried a fellow in a barber's booth, All by himself, his chin fresh shaved and smooth, Tr.i.m.m.i.n.g his nails, and with the easy air Of one unc.u.mbered by a wish or care.

”Demetrius!”--'twas his page, a boy of tact, In comprehension swift, and swift in act, ”Go, ascertain his rank, name, fortune; track His father, patron!” In a trice he's back.

”An auction-crier, Volteius Mena, sir, Means poor enough, no spot on character, Good or to work or idle, get or spend, Has his own house, delights to see a friend, Fond of the play, and sure, when work is done, Of those who crowd the Campus to make one.”

”I'd like to hear all from himself. Away, Bid him come dine with me--at once--to-day!”

Mena some trick in the request divines, Turns it all ways, then civilly declines.

”What! Says me nay?” ”'Tis even so, sir. Why?

Can't say. Dislikes you, or, more likely, shy.”

Next morning Philip searches Mena out, And finds him vending to a rabble rout Old crazy lumber, frippery of the worst, And with all courtesy salutes him first.

Mena pleads occupation, ties of trade, His service else he would by dawn have paid, At Philip's house,--was grieved to think, that how He should have failed to notice him till now.

”On one condition I accept your plea.

You come this afternoon, and dine with me.”

”Yours to command.” ”Be there, then, sharp at four!

Now go, work hard, and make your little more!”

At dinner Mena rattled on, expressed Whate'er came uppermost, then home to rest.

The hook was baited craftily, and when The fish came nibbling ever and again, At morn a client, and, when asked to dine, Not now at all in humour to decline, Philip himself one holiday drove him down, To see his villa some few miles from town.

Mena keeps praising up, the whole way there, The Sabine country, and the Sabine air; So Philip sees his fish is fairly caught, And smiles with inward triumph at the thought.

Resolved at any price to have his whim,-- For that is best of all repose to him,-- Seven hundred pounds he gives him there and then, Proffers on easy terms as much again, And so persuades him, that, with tastes like his, He ought to buy a farm;--so bought it is.

Not to detain you longer than enough, The dapper cit becomes a farmer bluff, Talks drains and subsoils, ever on the strain Grows lean, and ages with the l.u.s.t of gain.

But when his sheep are stolen, when murrains smite His goats, and his best crops are killed with blight, When at the plough his oxen drop down dead, Stung with his losses, up one night from bed He springs, and on a cart-horse makes his way, All wrath, to Philip's house, by break of day.

”How's this?” cries Philip, seeing him unshorn And shabby. ”Why, Vulteius, you look worn.

You work, methinks, too long upon the stretch.”

”Oh, that's not it, my patron. Call me wretch!

That is the only fitting name for me.

Oh, by thy Genius, by the G.o.ds that be Thy hearth's protectors, I beseech, implore, Give me, oh, give me back my life of yore!”

If for the worse you find you've changed your place, Pause not to think, but straight your steps retrace.

In every state the maxim still is true, On your own last take care to fit your shoe!

[1] The street where he lived, or, as we should say, ”s.h.i.+p Street.” The name was due probably to the circ.u.mstance of models of s.h.i.+ps being set up in it.

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