arest eating-house in the
whole city. None but the richest are his guests."

"Very good," laughed Hadrian. "Only find my assistant a new mask and
bring him back to me. It will not ruin me quite, even if I pay for a
supper for all three of us, and on a holiday one expects to spend
something."

"I hope you may not live to repent," retorted Pollux. "But a long fellow
like me is a good trencherman, and can do his part with the wine-jar."

"Only show me what you can do," cried Hadrian after him as Pollux hurried
off. "I owe you a supper at any rate, for that cabbage stew of your
mother's."

While Pollux went to seek the Bithyman in the vicinity of the Paneum, the
Emperor entered the eating house, which the skill of the cook had made
the most frequented and fashionable in Alexandria. The place in which
most of the customers of the house dined, consisted of a large open hall,
surrounded by arcades which were roofed in on three of its sides and
closed by a wall on its fourth; in these arcades stood couches, on which
the guests reclined singly, or in couples, or in larger groups, and
ordered the dishes and liquors which the serving slaves, pretty boys with
curling hair and hand some dresses, placed before them on low tables.
Here all was noise and bustle; at one table an epicure devoted himself
silently to the enjoyment of some carefully-prepared delicacy, at another
a large circle of men seemed to be talking more eagerly than they either
eat or drank, and from several of the smaller rooms behind the wall at
the back of the hall came sounds of music and song, and the bold laughter
of men and women.

The Emperor asked for a private room, but they were all occupied, and he
was requested to wait a little while, for that one of the adjoining.
rooms would very soon be vacant. He had taken off his mask, and though he
was not particularly afraid of being recognized in his disguise he chose
a couch that was screened by a broad pillar in one of the arcades at the
inner side of the court, and which, now that evening was beginning to
fall was already in obscurity. There he ordered, first some wine and then
some oysters to begin, with; while he was eating these he called one of
the superintendents and discussed with him the details of the supper he
wished presently to be served to himself and his two guests. During this
conversation the bustling host came to make his bow to his new customer,
and seeing that he had to do with a man full