"I have some sailors I don't trust. Don't leave anything aboard. Take your wallets with you."
We passed a pleasant, idle day, lunching and taking our siesta at an inn outside the Rome Gate. We had planned to dine at an inn near the harbor- front, on the west side of the town, not far from the Sea Gate: there we had barely sat down and begun tasting the relishes, when in came Clitellus and Summanus. They seemed surprised and pleased to recognize us, greeted us as if we had been old friends and close intimates, appeared to assume that we were as glad to see them as they were to see us, and, as a matter of course, joined us at dinner, telling the waiter-boy to bring them whatever we had ordered, only doubling the quantity of every order.
They talked of the races we had seen, of Palus, of his driving; of the smash-ups, of Posilla, of Colgius and of everything and anything. They announced that they would accompany us to our ship and see us safe aboard. Both Agathemer and I more than suspected that they had associates in waiting to follow them and, at a signal, fall on us and seize us. I felt all that and Agathemer whispered to me a word or two in Greek which advised me of his suspicions.
We prolonged our meal all we could, but there was no shaking them off. Agathemer ordered more wine, Falernian, and had it mixed with only one measure of water. Watching his opportunity he threw at me, in a whisper, two Greek words which advised me, since they were the first in a well- known quotation from Menander, that our only hope was to drink our tormentors dead drunk.
It turned out to be a question whether we would drink them drunk or they us. Certainly they showed no hesitation about pouring down the wine as fast as it was mixed and served, nor did either of them appear to notice that we drank less than they; they seemed able to hold any amount and stay sober and keep on drinking. As dusk deepened and the waiter-boys lit the inn lamps, I found myself perilously near sliding off my chair to the floor and very doubtful whether, if I did, I should be able to get up again or to resist my tendency to go to sleep then and there.
I was, in fact, just about to give up any attempt to resist my impulse to collapse when Summanus collapsed, slid to the floor, rolled over, spread out and snored.
Clitellus thickly objurgated his comrade and all weak-heads, worthless fellows who could not drink a few goblets without getting drunk. To prove his vast superiority and his prowess, he poured more wine down his throat, spilling some down into his tunic.
Agathemer winked at me and fingered the strap of his wallet. I groped for mine and fumbled at it.
Clitellus, with a hiccough, slid to the floor beside Summanus.
I was for trying to rise.