Horace Requests To Become Dead Beat's New Gossip Columnist

So Horace runs out of the tool shed screaming bloody murder:

"This is a fault common to all singers, that among their friends they never are inclined to sing when they are asked, [but] unasked, they never desist. Tigellius, that Sardinian, had this [fault]. Had Caesar, who could have forced him to compliance, besought him on account of his father’s friendship and his own, he would have had no success; if he himself was disposed, he would chant lo Bacche over and over, from the beginning of an entertainment to the very conclusion of it; one while at the deepest pitch of his voice, at another time with that which answers to the highest string of the tetrachord. There was nothing uniform in that fellow; frequently would he run along, as one flying from an enemy; more frequently [he walked] as if he bore [in procession] the sacrifice of Juno: he had often two hundred slaves, often but ten: one while talking of kings and potentates, every thing that was magnificent; at another–"Let me have a three-legged table, and a cellar of clean salt, and a gown which, though coarse, may be sufficient to keep out the cold.” Had you given ten hundred thousand sesterces to this moderate man who was content with such small matters, in five days’ time there would be nothing in his bags. He sat up at nights, [even] to day-light; he snored out all the day. Never was there anything so inconsistent with itself. Now some person may say to me, “What are you? Have you no faults?” Yes, others; but others, and perhaps of a less culpable nature...."

"What are you trying to say Horace?' I ask him.

"Dead Beat, can I be your gossip columnist?"

"Horace, old friend, old very old friend, Dead Beat does not stoop so low to gossip mongering."

Horace stomps up and down, positively fumes:

"When Maenius railed at Novius in his absence: “Hark ye,” says a certain person, “are you ignorant of yourself? or do you think to impose yourself upon us a person we do not know?” “As for me, I forgive myself,” quoth Maenius. This is a foolish and impious self-love, and worthy to be stigmatized. .."

"Okay, okay, you win, Horace. You can be Dead Beat's new official Gossip Columnist."

"Dead Beat, but that you are so good, that no man can be better; but he is your friend; but an immense genius is concealed under this unpolished person of his..."

"Shut up already!"