"Fresh oysters from Britannia, in tunny-sauce, with lettuce."
"With this dish, Falernian from Fundi," said Cethegus at once. "But where is the sideboard with the cups? Good wine deserves handsome goblets."
"There is the sideboard!" And at a sign from the host, a curtain, which had concealed a corner of the room opposite the guests, dropped.
A cry of astonishment ran round the table.
The richness of the service displayed, and the taste with which it was arranged, surprised even these fastidious feasters.
Upon the marble slab of a side-table stood a roomy silver carriage, with golden wheels and bronze horses. It was a model of a booty-wagon, such as were used in Roman triumphal processions, and, like a costly booty, within it was piled, in seeming disorder, but with an artistic hand, a quantity of goblets, glasses, and salvers, of every shape and material.
"By Mars the Victor!" laughed the Prefect, "the first Roman triumph for two hundred years! A rare sight! Dare I destroy it?"
"You are the man to set it up again," said Lucius, with fire.
"Do you think so? Let us try! First, we will have that goblet of pistachio-wood for the Falernian."
"Wind-thrushes from the Tagus, with asparagus from Tarento," continued the Lydian, reading the bill of fare.