e for nothing, and
this is another item in the total of my day's expenses. By Bacchus!
thrice lucky shall I be if the slaves do not help themselves to some of
the drinking vessels: ready, alas, are their hands, capacious are their
tunics. Me miserum!'

The cooks, however, worked on, seemingly heedless of the apparition of
Diomed.

'Ho, Euclio, your egg-pan! What, is this the largest? it only holds
thirty-three eggs: in the houses I usually serve, the smallest egg-pan
holds fifty, if need be!'

'The unconscionable rogue!' thought Diomed; 'he talks of eggs as if they
were a sesterce a hundred!'

'By Mercury!' cried a pert little culinary disciple, scarce in his
novitiate; 'whoever saw such antique sweetmeat shapes as these?--It is
impossible to do credit to one's art with such rude materials. Why,
Sallust's commonest sweetmeat shape represents the whole siege of Troy;
Hector and Paris, and Helen... with little Astyanax and the Wooden
Horse into the bargain!'

'Silence, fool!' said Congrio, the cook of the house, who seemed to
leave the chief part of the battle to his allies. 'My master, Diomed,
is not one of those expensive good-for-noughts, who must have the last
fashion, cost what it will!'

'Thou liest, base slave!' cried Diomed, in a great passion--and thou
costest me already enough to have ruined Lucullus himself! Come out of
thy den, I want to talk to thee.'

The slave, with a sly wink at his confederates, obeyed the command.

'Man of three letters,' said Diomed, with his face of solemn anger, 'how
didst thou dare to invite all those rascals into my house?--I see thief
written in every line of their faces.'

'Yet, I assure you, master, that they are men of most respectable
character--the best cooks of the place; it is a great favor to get them.
But for my sake...'

'Thy sake, unhappy Congrio!' interrupted Diomed; and by what purloined
moneys of mine, by what reserved filchings from marketing, by what
goodly meats converted into grease, and sold in the suburbs, by what
false charges for bronzes marred, and earthenware broken--hast thou been
enabled to make them serve thee for thy sake?'

'Nay, master, do not impeach my honesty! May the gods desert me if...'

'Swear not!' again interrupted the choleric Diomed, 'for then the gods
will smite thee for a perjurer, and I shall lose my cook on the eve of
dinner. But, enough of this at present: keep a sharp eye on thy
ill-favored assistants, and tell m