'Ten sestertia. I acknowledge it.'
'Nay, twenty sestertia, was it not?'
'Twenty sestertia be it, then. What matters the amount, when I paid you upon the moment, and you now have the sum, whatever it may be, in your own purse?'
'True, true,' rejoined the other, nodding his head with an air of sage gravity; 'whatever it was, of a certainty I now have it. And then, Sergius, you offered against the ten—no, the twenty sestertia—to play the choice of all your new slaves.'
'Of my new male slaves, certainly.'
'No, of the slaves both male and female. I will tell you how it is that I so especially recollect. It was because I had heard from our lawgiver here about the beautiful Samian girl you have borne home among your share of the spoils. You did not think, perhaps, that I knew of her; but when I offered to throw the dice, I held her in my mind. And then, when I had won, and told you that I would select her, you said—'
'Exactly what I had said to you before, that you could take your choice from the male slaves,' interrupted the other impatiently. 'And I have brought you directly hither to make your selection, for fear that when you became sober you would forget the matter altogether, and thereby cheat yourself out of a fairly won prize. Am I not right, comrades? Was not the play as I have stated it?'
'Neither more nor less,' the poet answered; and the tribune and the prætorian captain spoke to the same effect. The comedian still looked unconvinced, and, for the moment, gazed inquiringly from one to the other, in the hope that some newer recollection would come to the mind of either of them and lead to a recantation. But in that desire he was disappointed, and at last he reluctantly gave up the contest, not daring to protract it longer for fear of provoking a quarrel, and thereby being thrust out of the society to which he was aware his social talents, counteracting his low birth and calling, were his sole passport. And after all, though he had too carelessly made his wager, he had won twenty sestertia and a male slave, and that was something.
'Well, be it so,' he assented, with a sigh. 'A male slave, since you say it. I had supposed I had spoken more particularly, but it seems that my poor brain was careless and at fault. Only bring the slaves hither quickly, that I may choose and go home, for I must play Castorex this morning, and this head of mine seems likely to split.'
'Let it split, then,' retorted Sergius with a laugh. 'It may save our cracking it some day with a goblet. Ho, there, Drumo!'