BRITANNUS. An artist! Why have they admitted this vagabond?
CAESAR. Peace, man. Apollodorus is a famous patrician amateur.
BRITANNUS (_disconcerted_). I crave the gentleman's pardon. (_To Caesar_) I understood him to say that he was a professional. (_Somewhat out of countenance, he allows Apollodorus to approach Caesar, changing places with him. Rufio, after looking Apollodorus up and down with marked disparagement, goes to the other side of the platform._)
CAESAR. You are welcome, Apollodorus. What is your business?
APOLLODORUS. First, to deliver to you a present from the Queen of Queens.
CAESAR (_taking him into his confidence in his most winning manner_). Apollodorus: this is no time for playing with presents. Pray you, go back to the Queen, and tell her that if all goes well I shall return to the palace this evening.
APOLLODORUS. Caesar: I cannot return. As I approached the lighthouse, some fool threw a great leathern bag into the sea. It broke the nose of my boat; and I had hardly time to get myself and my charge to the shore before the poor little cockleshell sank.
CAESAR. I am sorry, Apollodorus. The fool shall be rebuked. Well, well: what have you brought me? The Queen will be hurt if I do not look at it.
RUFIO. Have we time to waste on this trumpery? The Queen is only a child.
CAESAR. Just so: that is why we must not disappoint her. What is the present, Apollodorus?
APOLLODORUS. Caesar: it is a Persian carpet--a beauty! And in it are--so I am told--pigeons' eggs and crystal goblets and fragile precious things. I dare not for my head have it carried up that narrow ladder from the causeway.
RUFIO. Swing it up by the crane, then. We will send the eggs to the cook; drink our wine from the goblets; and the carpet will make a bed for Caesar.
APOLLODORUS. The crane! Caesar: I have sworn to tender this bale of carpet as I tender my own life.
CAESAR (_cheerfully_). Then let them swing you up at the same time; and if the chain breaks, you and the pigeons' eggs will perish together. (_He goes to the chain and looks up along it, examining it curiously._)
APOLLODORUS (_to Britannus_). Is Caesar serious?
BRITANNUS. His manner is frivolous because he is an Italian; but he means what he says.