Few men
care about being put upon a short allowance of life, any more than we
sailors on short rations of rum."
"But you forget, Willis, that, though ten years were added to your
age, you would not have died a day sooner for all that."
"Still, it is my idea that the Pope was not much smarter at taking a
latitude than Mr. Julius Caesar--but what are you laughing at?"
"Nothing; only Julius Caesar is not generally honored with the prefix
_Mr_. It is something like the French, who insist upon talking of _Sir
Newton_ and _Mr. William Shakespeare_; the latter, however, by way of
amends, they sometimes style the _immortal Williams_.'"
"Not so bad, though, as a Frenchman I once met, who firmly believed
the Yankees lived on a soup made of bunkum and soft-sawder. But who
was Julius Caesar."
"Julius Caesar," replied Jack, sententiously, "was first of all an
author, Laving published at Rome an Easy Introduction to the Latin
Language; he afterwards turned general, conquered France and England,
and gave _Mr._ Pompey a sound thrashing at the battle of Pharsalia."
"He must have been a clever fellow to do all that; still, my idea
continues the same. When he began to caulk the calendar, he ought to
have finished the business in a workmanlike manner."
"That, however," continued Wolston, "he left to Pope Gregory, who
decreed that three leap years should be suppressed in four centuries.
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