"Yes, exactly like it. That's the way they speak in Spain! I heard it in Hispalis."
"Hark, what a roaring on the ships!"
"That must be a hymenæus, Victor! The bridegroom's brother composed it. The Barbarians now write Latin and Greek verses. But they are of their stamp."
"Yes, listen, Lauras," cried the other, laughing; "you are prejudiced, as a rival! Since you failed in your leather business, you have lived by writing, O friend! Weddings, baptisms, funerals, it was all the same to you. You have even sung the praises of the Vandal victories over the Moors, and--the Lord have mercy on us!--'the brave sword of King Hilderic.' Yes, you wrote for the Barbarians even more willingly and frequently than for us Romans."
"Of course. The Barbarians know less, require less, and pay better. For the same reason, friend Victor, you too must wish, for the sake of your wine-shop, that the Vandals may remain rulers of Carthage."
"How so?"
"Why, the Barbarians know as little about good wine as they do about good verses."
"Only half hit. They probably have a tolerably fair judgment of it. But they are always so thirsty that they will enjoy and pay for sour wine too--like your sour verses. Woe betide us when we no longer have the stupid Barbarians for customers! We should be obliged, in our old age, to furnish better wine and better poetry."
"The ships will soon be here! We can see everything distinctly now. Look at the bridegroom's enormous goblet; the little Cupid can scarcely hold it; it seems familiar to me."
"Why, of course. That's surely the immense shell from the Fountain of Neptune in the Forum,--larger than a child's head!"