CAESAR (kindly). No, no, my boy: that is your chair of state. Sit
down.

He makes Ptolemy sit down again. Meanwhile Rufio, looking about
him, sees in the nearest corner an image of the god Ra,
represented as a seated man with the head of a hawk. Before
the image is a bronze tripod, about as large as a three-legged
stool, with a stick of incense burning on it. Rufio, with Roman
resourcefulness and indifference to foreign superstitions,
promptly seizes the tripod; shakes off the incense; blows away
the ash; and dumps it down behind Caesar, nearly in the middle of
the hall.

RUFIO. Sit on that, Caesar.

A shiver runs through the court, followed by a hissing whisper of
Sacrilege!

CAESAR (seating himself). Now, Pothinus, to business. I am badly
in want of money.

BRITANNUS (disapproving of these informal expressions). My master
would say that there is a lawful debt due to Rome by Egypt,
contracted by the King's deceased father to the Triumvirate; and
that it is Caesar's duty to his country to require immediate
payment.

CAESAR (blandly). Ah, I forgot. I have not made my companions
known here. Pothinus: this is Britannus, my secretary. He is an
islander from the western end of the world, a day's voyage from