à barboter, on dabbling

Page 9. — 1. Mucius Scévola (" the left-handed "), a Roman who attempted to kill Porsena, the Etruscan king then besieging Rome, but killed the secretary of the latter by mistake, and who held his right hand in the fire of an altar until it was consumed, to show the king that he did not fear the threatened death. On his release by the king he told him three hundred other Roman youths had vowed his death, which caused him to raise the siège.