We will ask him.

What is to be made out of that newly-set-up mass of clay ?" "Possibly the bust of some princess of the house of the Lagides.
To-morrow you shall see a head of Berenice by our young friend, which seems to me to be one of the best things ever done in Alexandria." "And is the lad a proficient in magic ?" asked Hadrian.

"It seems to me simply impossible that he should have completed this statue and a woman's bust in these few days." Pontius explained to the Emperor that Pollux had mounted the head on a bust already to hand, and as he answered his questions without reserve, he revealed to him what stupendous exertions of the arts had been called into requisition to give the dilapidated palace a suitable and, in its kind, even brilliant appearance.

He frankly confessed that here he was working only for effect, and talked to Hadrian exactly as he would have discussed the same subject with any other fellow-artist.
While the Emperor and the architect were thus eagerly conversing, and the prefect was hearing from Phlegon, the secretary, all the experience of their journey, Pollux reappeared in the hall of the Muses accompanied by his father.

The singer carried before him a steaming mess, fresh cakes of bread, and the pasty which a few hours previously he had carried home to his wife from the architect's table.