"Not so," said Cicero, bridling in anger--"stomachans fastidiose," as he describes it himself--"but from Sicily." Then the other lounger, a fellow who pretended to know everything, put in his word.

"Do you not know that our Cicero has been Quaestor at Syracuse ?" The reader will remember that he had been Quaestor in the other division of the island, at Lilybaeum.

"There was no use in thinking any more about it," says Cicero.

"I gave up being angry and determined to be like any one else, just one at the waters." Yes, he had been very conceited, and well understood his own fault of character in that respect; but he would not have shown his conceit in that matter had he not resolved to do his duty in a manner uncommon then among Quaestors, and been conscious that he had done it.
Perhaps there is no more certain way of judging a man than from his own words, if his real words be in our possession.

In doing so, we are bound to remember how strong will be the bias of every man's mind in his own favor, and for that reason a judicious reader will discount a man's praise of himself.