"Take him out and have him beaten to death," she said to Tibur.

Little Boots began to scream. Germanicus put an end to that with a curt command. "Wait!" he said to Tibur, and then he turned again to Little Boots. "Did you spit on Britannicus?" he asked.

"Yes," said Little Boots. "He is my slave; I can spit on him if I choose."

"A gentleman does not do such things," said Germanicus, gravely, "much less a prince of the imperial house."

Agrippina stamped her foot. "Why all this foolishness?" she demanded. "Take the creature out and beat it to death!"

"I can die," I said. "I am the great-grandson of Cingetorix."

Little Boots began to scream again. "No! No! No!" he cried. "I want Brit."

"You may go," said Germanicus to Tibur. So I was not beaten to death, nor do I know whether it was Little Boots or Germanicus who saved me. After this, Agrippina was no fonder of me. I can sometimes see those terrible, malevolent eyes of hers upon me in my sleep.

After this episode, Little Boots and I took up the more or less even tenor of our ways just as if nothing had occurred to rift the lute, for such is the easy accommodation of childhood to the amenities of its little life. But Little Boots never spit on me again; and up to the day of his death, even when he was master of the world, he seemed just a little bit afraid of me. From the day of his birth to the day of his death, I was probably the only man who ever struck him. That blow, and it was no light one, must have made an indelible impression upon the mind of a child.

Of all the thousands of men in that Roman camp, Tibur the ex-gladiator had made the most profound impression upon me. He was a huge man of mighty muscles. In designing him, the gods seemed to have sacrificed his forehead that they might have more material for his bull neck, and they had certainly wasted little thought upon the pulchritude of his assembled features. Yet there was a certain magnificent grandeur in that face of his that compelled admiration: like Vesuvius in eruption it was magnificent because it was so terrible. To me, he was a greater man than Germanicus; he was certainly more of a man.

I used to drag Little Boots into the camp to find Tibur when he was off duty, and we would listen to his tall tales of the arena open-mouthed and goggle-eyed. It seemed that Tibur had been sentenced to the arena for murder (he was very proud of that murder and recounted it over and over again together with all the gory details); but when he killed every opponent pitted against him, including bears, lions, and tigers, Augustus pardoned him, and he became a professional gladiator. How many men and beasts he had killed he could not tell us, though I begged him to try to recall. I became inclined to believe, as I matured and came to know Tibur even better, that he could not satisfy my curiosity on this point because he could not count beyond ten. Though of gigantic stature, Tibur was no mental giant. Here again the gods had failed to maintain an equable balance.