Chapter 16

CHAPTER XVI.

The ladies had left the room and the port was circulating. Mr.
Scogan filled his glass, passed on the decanter, and, leaning
back in his chair, looked about him for a moment in silence. The
conversation rippled idly round him, but he disregarded it; he
was smiling at some private joke. Gombauld noticed his smile.

"What's amusing you?" he asked.

"I was just looking at you all, sitting round this table," said
Mr. Scogan.

"Are we as comic as all that?"

"Not at all," Mr. Scogan answered politely. "I was merely amused
by my own speculations."

"And what were they?"

"The idlest, the most academic of speculations. I was looking at
you one by one and trying to imagine which of the first six
Caesars you would each resemble, if you were given the
opportunity of behaving like a Caesar. The Caesars are one of my
touchstones," Mr. Scogan explained. "They are characters
functioning, so to speak, in the void. They are human beings
developed to their logical conclusions. Hence their unequalled
value as a touchstone, a standard. When I meet someone for the
first time, I ask myself this question: Given the Caesarean
environment, which of the Caesars would this person resemble--
Julius, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero? I take
each trait of character, each mental and emotional bias, each
little oddity, and magnify them a thousand times. The resulting
image gives me his Caesarean formula."

"And which of the Caesars do you resemble?" asked Gombauld.

"I am potentially all of them," Mr. Scogan replied, "all--with
the possible exception of Claudius, who was much too stupid to be
a development of anything in my character. The seeds of Julius's
courage and compelling energy, of Augustus's prudence, of the
libidinousness and cruelty of Tiberius, of Caligula's folly, of
Nero's artistic genius and enormous vanity, are all within me.
Given the opportunities, I might have been something fabulous.
But circumstances were against me. I was born and brought up in
a country rectory; I passed my youth doing a great deal of
utterly senseless hard work for a very little money. The result
is that now, in middle age, I am the poor thing that I am. But
perhaps it is as well. Perhaps, too, it's as well that Denis
hasn't been permitted to flower into a little Nero, and that Ivor
remains only potentially a Caligula. Yes, it's better so, no
doubt. But it would have been more amusing, as a spectacle, if
they had had the chance to develop, untrammelled, the full horror
of their potentialities. It would have been pleasant and
interesting to watch their tics and foibles and little vices
swelling and burgeoning and blossoming into enormous and