"Why for you, if I must, I would drink nothing but wretched water.

Euphorion you may finish what is left in the jar presently." .........................
Pontius had already begun his labors, at first with aid only of his assistants who had followed him on foot.

Measuring, estimating, sending short notes and writing figures, names and suggestions on the plan, and on his folding wax-tablets, he was not idle for an instant, though frequently interrupted by the appointed superintendents of the workshops and manufactures in Lochias, whose co-operation he required.

They only came at this late hour because they were called upon by the prefect's orders.
Papias, the sculptor, introduced himself among the latest, though Pontius had written to him with his own hand that he had to communicate to him a very remunerative and particularly pressing commission for the Emperor, which might, perhaps, be taken in hand that very night.

The matter in question was a statue of Urania, which must be completed in eight days by the same method which Papias had introduced at the last festival of Adonis, and to the scale which he, Pontius, indicated, in the palace of Lochias itself.