No More Learning

BORE: You must make my acquaintance, I'm a savant.

HORACE: Then I'll think the more of you. (HORACE, _anxious to get
away, walks fast one minute, halts the next, whispers something to his
attendant slave, and is bathed in perspiration all over. Then, quietly
to himself_) Lucky Bolanus, with your hot temper!

BORE (_whose chatter on things in general, and about the streets of
Rome in particular, has been received with dead silence_): You're
frightfully keen to be off. I've noticed it all along. But it's no
good. I'm going to stick to you right through. I'll escort you from
here to your destination.

HORACE (_deprecatingly_): No need for you to make such a detour.
(_Inventing fibs as he goes along_) There's someone I want to look
up--a person you don't know, on the other side of the river--yes, far
away--he's confined to bed--near Caesar's Park.

BORE: Oh, I've nothing to do, and I don't dislike exercise. I'll
follow you right there. (HORACE _is as crestfallen as a sulky donkey
when an extra heavy load is dumped upon its back. The_ BORE
_continues_) If I know myself, you'll not value Viscus more highly
as a friend, or Varius either; for who can write verses faster, and
more of them, than I can?
Who's a greater master of deportment? As
for my singing, it's enough to make even Hermogenes jealous!

HORACE (_seizing the chance of interrupting_): Have you a mother--any
relatives to whom your health is of moment?

BORE: Not one left. I've laid them all to rest.

HORACE: Lucky people! Now I'm the sole survivor. Do for _me_! The
melancholy fate draws near which a fortune-telling Sabellian crone once
prophesied in my boyhood: "This lad neither dread poison nor hostile
sword shall take off, nor pleurisy, nor cough, nor crippling gout. A
chatterbox will one day be his death! "

BORE (_realising that, as it is the hour for opening the law course,
he must answer to his recognisances, or lose a suit to which he is a
party_): Oblige me with your assistance in court for a little.

HORACE: Deuce take me if I've strength to hang about so long, or know
any law. Besides, I'm hurrying, you know where.

BORE: I'm in a fix what to do--whether to give you up or my case.

HORACE: Me, please.

BORE: Shan't!