The whole story, told with a mixture of infinite relish and irony, was irresistible; but not one of the party laughed so immoderately, so long, and so loud, as the starch adjutant. He could not get over it; laughter as of a cyclops filled his throat; it was as though the honest clumsiness of the soldier stood revealed in this naive and noisy amusement. His demeanor was so frank and blunt, that it might have satisfied Caesar himself.
Still, this loud joviality was somewhat belied by the glances which Clodianus cast from time to time, when he thought himself unobserved, at a corner of the hall, where a man with piercing eyes and a strong aquiline nose, was beguiling the quarter of an hour spent in cooling himself, by reading. When the loud shout of laughter echoed through the room like the rattle of thunder, the reader raised his reddened eyelids.
“What, Stephanus!” shouted Clodianus, holding his sides. “You are once more to be seen here? You have neglected us too much these last weeks. Martial grows more audacious every day. He is a splendid rascal, this Hispanian bully; by Incitatus! but he makes mince-meat of our Quirites. The story of Sabellus is delicious, a thing to revel in! And what are you studying here, in the intervals of discus-throwing?”
He had slowly gone up to the steward, while the group round the witty epigrammatist were already drawn into the current of another story.
“You are too kind,” replied Stephanus. “But an individual can never be missed, where good talk is kept up by so many distinguished men. I am worried and out of spirits, and quite out of place among the gay and cheerful.”
Clodianus expressed his regret in a long-drawn “Ah,” but his eye betrayed no sorrow. He seated himself on the couch by Stephanus.
“It is very true, the air of the city is saturated with anxiety. I have my own little share of it. You know the old saying: ‘A scorpion lurks under every stone.’” Stephanus smiled.
“You carry your politeness—or your irony—too far.—You, the most fortunate man in Rome.”
“I might very well say the same of you. Except the little annoyances that Cneius Afranius can cause you, your life is that of a god on Olympus.—To be sure,” he added in a lower voice, “that man’s tenacity is beginning to look threatening. All the more so since....”
“Well, finish your sentence.”