[Rapturously.] Is it not heavenly?
Valentinus.
Truly it has ever been a favourite of mine since in my schoolboy days I conned my Anacreon! [Pertinax looks discomfited, Quartilla sympathetic, while Nerva, looking in at the curtains, bursts into peals of laughter.]
Nerva.
Anacreon! By Momus, but that’s funny! Anacreon, indeed, my poet!
Pertinax.
[Seizing on Nerva.] Shameless one than whom none is more contemptible! To perdition with you! May the gods give you your deserts! May you be buffeted with fists, jerked with rods, pricked with goads, pinched with red-hot tongs, roasted over a scorching fire, and thrown to wild beasts to be devoured!
Nerva.
Help, help! Hercules, I invoke thy aid! Oh, I’m destroyed utterly!