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You are to go with me, and by my way; and this is the proof I tell you truth. He sends you this note, and wishes you in a bad time the best gifts of Bacchus and Ceres.” Agellius took the tablets, and went with them across the road to the place where Cæcilius was at work, in appearance a slave. The letter ran thus:—“Jucundus to Agellius.
When a collision arose on such matters between Agellius and his friends, Callista kept silence; but Aristo was not slow to express his wonder that the young Christian should think customs or practices wrong which, in his view of the matter, were as unblamable and natural as eating, drinking, or sleeping.
I know if you can help me, you will.” Cornelius answered that he was going back to Carthage in a day or two, and came to embrace him, and had hoped to have a parting supper before he went. “That’s kind!” answered Jucundus: “but first tell me all about this dreadful affair; for you are in the secrets of the Capitol. Have they any clue what has become of my poor Agellius?”
“My dear Agellius,” said Jucundus, “it would be a most suitable proceeding. I have never taken to marrying myself; it has not lain in my way, or been to my taste. Your father did not set me an encouraging example; but here you are living by yourself, in this odd fashion, unlike any one else. Perhaps you may come in time and live in Sicca.
“That man, Tertullianus, is nothing to us, uncle,” answered Agellius; “a man of great ability, but he quarrelled with us, and left us.” “I can’t draw nice distinctions,” said Jucundus. “Your people have quarrelled among themselves perhaps on an understanding; we can’t split hairs. It’s the same with your present hierophant at Carthage, Cyprianus.
Juba kept silent for awhile, and bit his nails with a smile on his face, and his eyes looking askance upon the ground. “I want no more than I have; I am well content,” he said. “Contented with yourself,” retorted Agellius. “Of course,” Juba replied; “whom ought one to wish rather to content?” “I suppose, your Creator.”
He had no motive whatever, but a simple desire of his nephew’s welfare; what other motive could he have? “Let Agellius go to the crows,” he thought, “if he will; what is it to me if he is seized for a Christian, hung up like a dog, or thrown like a dead rat into the cloaca of the prison?
I’d rather get drunk every day than fall down on all fours as you do, crawling on your stomach like a worm, and whining like a hound that has been beaten.” “Now, as I live, you shan’t stop here one instant longer!” cried out Agellius, starting up. “Be off with you! get away! what do you come here to blaspheme for? who wants you? who asked for you? Go! go, I say! take yourself off!
“My dear boy,” he said, “Agellius is but a wet Christian; that’s all, not obstinate, like his brother there. ’Twas his father; the less we say about him the better; he’s gone. The Furies make his bed for him! an odious set! Their priests, little ugly men. I saw one when I was a boy at Carthage.
“A lower flight, if you please, just now,” said Aristo, interrupting her. “I do really wish a serious word with you about Agellius. He’s a fellow I can’t help liking, in spite of his misanthropy. Let me plead his cause. Like him or not yourself, still he has a full purse; and you will do a service to yourself and to the gods of Greece, and to him too, if you will smile on him.
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