‘And faster still to eat his dinner,’ added the old man.
‘Ho! ho! Torquatus, I see you are in your best humour,’ cried Apicius, joining in the laugh, with more vivacity and briskness in his appearance.
‘Who arrived first to his appointment, Apicius?’ inquired Afer.
‘When my slave called me to the room, I found Torquatus here alone to greet me,’ replied the host.
‘Then has Torquatus the best right to the best part of your dinner, noble host, since his eagerness to eat it outstripped us all. Hungry Torquatus!’
Loud laughter from all drowned the snarling reply of the old man, but his scowling eyes spoke volumes.
‘Thou hast it fairly,’ said Apicius, when the merriment ceased; ‘but don’t be ill-humoured, Torquatus—it so ill becomes thee.’
The juvenile mirth of Flaccus shook his sides at this, and dislocated some of the enamel on his face; and ere the amusement had subsided, the heavy purple curtain of the doorway was drawn aside to admit another comer, a man in the prime of his age, of tall commanding presence and handsome countenance. He bestowed one rapid glance upon the occupants of the room, and ere their eyes, in turn, were drawn towards him, his lips were wreathed in a bland smile.
‘The Prefect Sejanus!’ announced the slave at the door.
As the name of the most powerful man in Rome fell on the ears of the company, it banished the laughter from their lips. Following the example of their host, they pressed around the new arrival, eager to salute him. Flaccus, the elderly dandy, who was a small man, tried to strain himself, like the frog in the fable, into an individual of imposing appearance. Torquatus posed himself into a caricature of a philosopher of elevated and dignified severity. Even the nerveless Pansa elevated his tremulous eyes, and rose from his chair. But when the first greetings were over, the conversation soon fell back once more into a current of liveliness and jest, under the influence of the imperial minister’s good humour and indiscriminate affability.