Before the slave entered, the guests turned in alarm toward the farther end of the table. A beast-like growling arose from beneath it. Euphobias had fallen from his couch, and with his head on the mosaic was disgorging his dinner, accompanied by a stream of wine.
"Give him laurel leaves!" called the prudent Alcon. "There is nothing better to dissipate drunkenness."
The slaves compelled him almost by force to chew the leaves, paying no attention to the philosopher's protests.
"I am not drunk," shouted Euphobias. "It is the hunger which persecutes me. Most of the time I can find no bread, and when I am so fortunate as to sit at a table like Sónnica's, the food which I eat escapes me."
"Say rather the wine which you drink escapes you," replied Sónnica, resting her head again on Actæon's breast.
The contortionist had reappeared before the table, and had greeted her mistress by touching her hands to her face. She was a girl of about fourteen, with yellowish skin, wearing a pair of red trunks. Her nervous and agile limbs, and her lean, undeveloped chest, made her look like a boy. The elder guests smiled, stirred by her fresh and almost masculine beauty.
She uttered a shout, and doubling over with elastic vigor stood on her hands, and with feet in the air and her head almost touching the floor, she began to run swiftly about the triclinium. Then, with a powerful spring of her arms, she leaped upon the table, and trotted on her hands among the confusion of plates, amphoræ, and cups, without upsetting them.
The guests applauded with enthusiasm. The two Greek merchants offered her their goblets, pinching her cheeks while she drank, and passing their hands caressingly over her back.
"Lachares," said the philosopher to his aristocratic enemy, "why have you and your companions not brought your beautiful slave boys who serve you as supports in the Forum?"
"Sónnica will not allow it," replied the young gallant, pleased at the question, not suspecting the irony in Euphobias' words. "She is a superior woman, but this is the only one of the refined customs of Athens which she declines to tolerate. She believes in Jupiter and Leda; but she spits upon the beautiful Ganymede. She is not a full-fledged Athenian."