secure in
the eminence on which they were placed, the purveyors of this public
banquet expressed their contempt for its noisy recipients, by holding
their noses, stopping their ears, turning their backs, and other
pantomimic demonstrations of lofty and excessive disgust. These
actions did not escape the attention of those members of the assembly
who, having eaten their fill, were at leisure to make use of their
tongues, and who showered an incessant storm of abuse on the heads of
their benefactor's retainers.

'See those fellows!' cried one; 'they are the waiters at our feast, and
they mock us to our faces! Down with the filthy kitchen thieves!'

'Excellently well said, Davus!--but who is to approach them? They
stink at this distance!'

'The rotten-bodied knaves have the noses of dogs and the carcases of
goats.'

Then came a chorus of voices--'Down with them! Down with them!' In
the midst of which an indignant freedman advanced to rebuke the mob,
receiving, as the reward of his temerity, a shower of missiles and a
volley of curses; after which he was thus addressed by a huge, greasy
butcher, hoisted on his companions' shoulders:--

'By the soul of the emperor, could I get near you, you rogue, I would
quarter you with my fingers alone!--A grinning scoundrel that jeers at
others! A filthy flatterer that dirts the very ground he walks on! By
the blood of the martyrs, should I fling the sweepings of the
slaughter-house at him, he knows not where to get himself dried!'

'Thou rag of a man,' roared a neighbour of the indignant butcher's,
'dost thou frown upon the guests of thy master, the very scrapings of
whose skin are worth more than thy whole carcase! It is easier to make
a drinking-vessel of the skull of a flea than to make an honest man of
such a villainous night-walker as thou art!'

'Health and prosperity to our noble entertainer!' shouted one section
of the grateful crowd as the last speaker paused for breath.

'Death to all knaves of parasites!' chimed in another.

'Honour to the citizens of Rome!' roared a third party with modest
enthusiasm.

'Give that freedman our bones to pick!' screamed an urchin from the
outskirts of the crowd.

This ingenious piece of advice was immediately followed; and the
populace gave vent to a shout of triumph as the unfortunate freedman,
scared by a new volley of missiles, retreated with ignominious
expedition to the shelter of his patron's halls.

In the sligh