against the Jews, and having enriched himself
prodigiously in the wars, was always told by his friends that his
country was eternally indebted to his disinterested exertions! The
party, however, extended to a yet greater number: for although,
critically speaking, it was, at one time, thought inelegant among the
Romans to entertain less than three or more than nine at their banquets,
yet this rule was easily disregarded by the ostentatious. And we are
told, indeed, in history, that one of the most splendid of these
entertainers usually feasted a select party of three hundred. Diomed,
however, more modest, contented himself with doubling the number of the
Muses. His party consisted of eighteen, no unfashionable number in the
present day.

It was the morning of Diomed's banquet; and Diomed himself, though he
greatly affected the gentleman and the scholar, retained enough of his
mercantile experience to know that a master's eye makes a ready servant.
Accordingly, with his tunic ungirdled on his portly stomach, his easy
slippers on his feet, a small wand in his hand, wherewith he now
directed the gaze, and now corrected the back, of some duller menial, he
went from chamber to chamber of his costly villa.

He did not disdain even a visit to that sacred apartment in which the
priests of the festival prepare their offerings. On entering the
kitchen, his ears were agreeably stunned by the noise of dishes and
pans, of oaths and commands. Small as this indispensable chamber seems
to have been in all the houses of Pompeii, it was, nevertheless, usually
fitted up with all that amazing variety of stoves and shapes, stew-pans
and saucepans, cutters and moulds, without which a cook of spirit, no
matter whether he be an ancient or a modern, declares it utterly
impossible that he can give you anything to eat. And as fuel was then,
as now, dear and scarce in those regions, great seems to have been the
dexterity exercised in preparing as many things as possible with as
little fire. An admirable contrivance of this nature may be still seen
in the Neapolitan Museum, viz., a portable kitchen, about the size of a
folio volume, containing stoves for four dishes, and an apparatus for
heating water or other beverages.

Across the small kitchen flitted many forms which the quick eye of the
master did not recognize.

'Oh! oh!' grumbled he to himself, 'that cursed Congrio hath invited a
whole legion of cooks to assist him. They won't serv