The slave hastened to inform the party that the scroll fastened to the cork betokened its birth from Chios, and its age a ripe fifty years.
"How deliciously the snow has cooled it!" said Pansa; "it is just enough."
"It is like the experience of a man who has cooled his pleasures sufficiently to give them a double zest," exclaimed Sallust.
"It is like a woman's 'No,'" added Glaucus; "it cools but to inflame the more."
"When is our next wild-beast fight?" said Clodius to Pansa.
"It stands fixed for the ninth ide of August," answered Pansa, "on the day after the Vulcanalia; we have a most lovely young lion for the occasion."
"Whom shall we get for him to eat?" asked Clodius, "Alas! there is a great scarcity of criminals. You must positively find some innocent or other to condemn to the lion, Pansa!"
"Indeed I have thought very seriously about it of late," replied the ædile, gravely. "It was a most infamous law that which forbade us to send our own slaves to the wild beasts. Not to let us do what we like with our own, that's what I call an infringement on property itself."
"Not so in the good old days of the republic," sighed Sallust.
"And then this pretended mercy to the slaves is such a disappointment to the poor people. How they do love to see a good tough battle between a man and a lion! and all this innocent pleasure they may lose (if the gods don't send us a good criminal soon) from this cursed law."