"But is the sitting at an end?" asked the Prefect, resting his left arm on the cushions of the triclinium.
"No," cried the host, "I will confess the truth. As I could not reckon upon the king of our feast until the dessert, I have prepared a little after-feast to be taken with the wine."
"Oh, you sinner!" cried Balbus, wiping his greasy lips upon the rough purple Turkish table-cover, "and I have eaten such a terrible quantity of your becca-ficchi!"
"It is against the agreement!" cried Marcus Licinius.
"It will spoil my manners," said the merry Piso gravely.
"Say, is that Hellenic simplicity?" asked Lucius Licinius.
"Peace, friends!" and Cethegus comforted them with a quotation: "'E'en unexpected hurt, a Roman bears unmoved.'"
"The Hellenic host must adjust himself according to his guests," said Kallistratos, excusing himself. "I feared you would not come again if I offered you Marathonian fare."
"Well, at least confess with what you menace us," cried Cethegus. "Thou, Nomenclator! read the bill of fare. I will then decide upon the suitable wines."
The slave--a handsome Lydian boy, dressed in a garment of blue Pelusian linen, slit up to the knee--came close to Cethegus at the cypress-wood table, and read from a little tablet which he carried fastened to a golden chain about his neck: