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312 him, if he is remiss in correspondence, and tells him that he will have to employ his old master to plead his cause, and that it will require all Cicero's eloquence to get him acquitted. Young Marcus, Cicero's son, is likewise very affectionate in his expressions. There is a pleasant letter from the lad in which he banters Tiro about his purchase of a farm: "You will have to give up all your fine city ways. You have become a country Roman. I see you as large as life, and very charming you look buying implements, consulting with the bailiff, and keeping the seeds you have saved from dessert in your great-coat pocket."

To Cicero himself Tiro was, as he says, invaluable. He was his secretary who, by means of a sort of shorthand which he invented, could keep pace while his master dictated, or, if need were, decipher his handwriting when the ordinary copyists were at fault, his critic who could correct slips of the pen or of memory; the constant aid in all his literary work. "I am most anxious to have you with me," writes Cicero on the occasion of another sickness, "but I am afraid of the journey for you. . . . Remember that a relapse owing to any imprudence after so severe an attack may have serious consequences. My studies, or I should say our studies, have been quite languishing for want of you,